Anaxyrus houstonensis (Sanders, 1953)

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Bufonidae > Genus: Anaxyrus > Species: Anaxyrus houstonensis

Bufo houstonensis Sanders, 1953, Herpetologica, 9: 27. Holotype: UIMNH 33687, by original designation. Type locality: "Fairbanks, Harris Co[unty]., Texas", USA; corrected to "off Tanner Road, 1-2 mi. W of its junction with Campbell Road in northwest Houston", Harris Co., Texas, USA, by Brown, 1971, Southwest. Nat., 16: 195.

Bufo americanus houstonensis — Blair, 1957, in Blair et al. (eds.), Vert. U.S.: 250.

Bufo houstonensis — Brown, 1971, Southwest. Nat., 16: 185–199.

Anaxyrus houstonensis — Frost, Grant, Faivovich, Bain, Haas, Haddad, de Sá, Channing, Wilkinson, Donnellan, Raxworthy, Campbell, Blotto, Moler, Drewes, Nussbaum, Lynch, Green, and Wheeler, 2006, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., 297: 363.

Bufo (Anaxyrus) houstonensis — Fouquette and Dubois, 2014, Checklist N.A. Amph. Rept.: 304. See comment under Bufonidae regarding how this arrangement is part of a a system that requires widespread paraphyly. 

Common Names

Houston Toad (Conant, Cagle, Goin, Lowe, Neill, Netting, Schmidt, Shaw, Stebbins, and Bogert, 1956, Copeia, 1956: 176; Conant, 1975, Field Guide Rept. Amph. E. Cent. N. Am., Ed. 2: 308; Collins, Huheey, Knight, and Smith, 1978, Herpetol. Circ., 7: 10; Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 42; Collins, 1997, Herpetol. Circ., 25: 11; USFWS; Crother, Boundy, Campbell, de Queiroz, Frost, Highton, Iverson, Meylan, Reeder, Seidel, Sites, Taggart, Tilley, and Wake, 2001 "2000", Herpetol. Circ., 29: 7; Frost, McDiarmid, and Mendelson, 2008, in Crother (ed.), Herpetol. Circ., 37: 4; Collins and Taggart, 2009, Standard Common Curr. Sci. Names N. Am. Amph. Turtles Rept. Crocodil., ed. 6: 6; Frost, McDiarmid, Mendelson, and Green, 2012, in Crother (ed.), Herpetol. Circ., 39: 13; Frost, Lemmon, McDiarmid, and Mendelson, 2017, in Crother (ed.), Herpetol. Circ., 43: 8).

Distribution

In isolated populations in southeast-central Texas, USA, in areas of sandy friable soils.

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: United States of America, United States of America - Texas

Endemic: United States of America, United States of America - Texas

Comment

Reviewed by Brown, 1973, Cat. Am. Amph. Rept., 133: 1–2. In the Bufo americanus group according to Blair, 1959, Texas J. Sci., 11: 427. Shepard and Brown, 2005, in Lannoo (ed.), Amph. Declines: 415–417, provided a detailed account, map, and conservation status. Cocroft and Ryan, 1995, Animal Behav., 49: 283–303, discussed advertisement call in an evolutionary context. See photograph, map, description of geographic range and habitat, and conservation status (as Bufo houstonensis) in Stuart, Hoffmann, Chanson, Cox, Berridge, Ramani, and Young, 2008, Threatened Amph. World: 185. Dodd, 2013, Frogs U.S. and Canada, 1: 120–126, provided an account that summarized relevant literature. Elliot, Gerhardt, and Davidson, 2009, Frogs and Toads of N. Am.: 148–149, provided an account, photos, and advertisement call. Altig and McDiarmid, 2015, Handb. Larval Amph. US and Canada: 173–175, provided an account of larval morphology and biology. Bassett, 2023, Reptiles & Amphibians, 30(e18486): 1–18, provided an updated county distribution map for Texas, USA. MacLaren, Hibbitts, Forstner, and McCracken, 2024, PeerJ, 12(e17635): 1–21, discussed morphology, morphometrics, and vocalization in comparison with Anaxyrus americanus charlesmithi. 

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