Anaxyrus quercicus (Holbrook, 1840)

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

Bufo quercicus Holbrook, 1840, N. Am. Herpetol., 4: 109. Type(s): Frog illustrated in pl. 22; not known to still exist. Type localities: "near Charleston in South Carolina, and at Smithville in North Carolina"; restricted to "Charleston, South Carolina", USA, by Schmidt, 1953, Check List N. Am. Amph. Rept., Ed. 6: 65.

Chilophryne dialopha Cope, 1862, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, 14: 341. Types: "Museum Academy, Phila." = ANSP, likely lost, not listed by Malnate, 1971, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, 123: 345-375. Type locality: "Sandwich Islands" (= Hawaiian Islands), in error according to Cope, 1889, Bull. U.S. Natl. Mus., 34: 291-92; designated as "Charleston, South Carolina", USA, by Schmidt, 1953, Check List N. Am. Amph. Rept., Ed. 6: 65. Synonymy by Cope, 1886, Proc. Am. Philos. Soc., 23: 516; Cope, 1889, Bull. U.S. Natl. Mus., 34: 291; Nieden, 1923, Das Tierreich, 46: 123.

Incilius dialophus — Cope, 1863, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, 15: 50.

Bufo dialophus — Boulenger, 1882, Cat. Batr. Sal. Coll. Brit. Mus., Ed. 2: 319.

Anaxyrus quercicus — 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) quercicus — Fouquette and Dubois, 2014, Checklist N.A. Amph. Rept.: 307. See comment under Bufonidae regarding how this arrangement is part of a a system that requires substantial paraphyly. 

Common Names

Oak Toad (Yarrow, 1876, List Skeletons and Crania: 39; Yarrow, 1882, Bull. U.S. Natl. Mus., 24: 23; Dickerson, 1906, The Frog Book: 104: Wright and Wright, 1933, Handb. Frogs Toads U.S. Canada: x; Carr, 1940, Univ. Florida Biol. Sci. Ser., 3: 54; Schmidt, 1953, Check List N. Am. Amph. Rept., Ed. 6: 65; 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: 312; Collins, Huheey, Knight, and Smith, 1978, Herpetol. Circ., 7: 11; Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 43; Collins, 1997, Herpetol. Circ., 25: 11; Crother, Boundy, Campbell, de Queiroz, Frost, Highton, Iverson, Meylan, Reeder, Seidel, Sites, Taggart, Tilley, and Wake, 2001 "2000", Herpetol. Circ., 29: 8; 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: 9).

Dwarf Toad (Brimley, 1907, J. Elisha Mitchell Sci. Soc., 23: 157; Viosca, 1949, Pop. Sci. Bull., Louisiana Acad. Sci., 1: 10).

Distribution

Southeastern Louisiana to southeastern Virginia along the Gulf and Atlantic coastal plains, central, southern, and eastern Alabama, and all of peninsular Florida, USA.

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: United States of America, United States of America - Alabama, United States of America - Florida, United States of America - Georgia, United States of America - Louisiana, United States of America - Mississippi, United States of America - North Carolina, United States of America - South Carolina, United States of America - Virginia

Endemic: United States of America

Comment

Reviewed by Ashton and Franz, 1979, Cat. Am. Amph. Rept., 222: 1-2. In the Bufo quercicus group of Blair, 1972, Evol. Genus Bufo: 353. Punzo, 2005, in Lannoo (ed.), Amph. Declines: 432–433, and Dodd, 2013, Frogs U.S. and Canada, 1: 144–149, provideds account that summarized relevant literature. Elliot, Gerhardt, and Davidson, 2009, Frogs and Toads of N. Am.: 142–143, provided an account, photos, and advertisement call. Altig and McDiarmid, 2015, Handb. Larval Amph. US and Canada: 183, provided an account of larval morphology and biology. See account of biology and life history in southern Florida by Meshaka and Lane, 2015, Herpetol. Conserv. Biol., 10 (Monogr. 5): 20–26. Guyer and Bailey, 2023, Frogs and Toads of Alabama: 60–63, provided a detailed account (including larval morphology) for Alabama, USA.   

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