Search tool	Example of search string in box	What that means to the database
* = "wildcard". Allows a partial letter string to be entered and implies either no or various extension on this letter string	Hyl*	Will find all uses of "Hyl . . ." anywhere in a record: e.g., Hylarana, Hyla, Hylidae, Hylinae, Hylaedactyla.
* = "wildcard". Allows a partial letter string to be entered and implies either no or various extension on this letter string	*Hyla	Will find all uses of ". . . hyla" anywhere in a record: e.g., Hyla, Hylidae, Plectrohyla, Ptychadena hylaea, Adenomera hylaedactyla
	Hyla	Will find all records that contain stand-alone uses of Hyla: e.g., Hyla, Hyla arenicolor
Strings of words without quotation marks	Lithobates pipiens	Interprets this as "Lithobates OR pipiens" so will find the union of all records that contain either "Lithobates" or "pipiens": e.g., Lithobates omiltemanus, Hylorana pipiens
Strings of word with quotation marks	"Lithobates pipiens"	Interprets this as "Lithobates AND pipiens" so will return all records that have the character string "Lithobates pipiens" anywhere within a record: e.g., all members of the Lithobates pipiens complex.
AND statement. Means that the results of the search must include both words held together by an AND	Lithobates AND pipiens	Same as "Lithobates pipiens"
OR statement. Means that the results of the search will all records that have either of the terms held together by an OR	Lithobates OR "Costa Rica"	Recovers all records that contain the word "Lithobates" or "Costa Rica": 402 records inasmuch as this will include all records for the entire amphibian fauna of Costa Rica
Combining Boolean operators within the Basic Search box (AND, OR, NOT, quotation marks)	Lithobates AND "Costa Rica" NOT forreri	Recovers only records that contain the word Lithobates AND "Costa Rica", but excludes any record that contains the word "forreri" in any part of the record: 9 records
Printable HELP file

Search tool	Example of search string in box	What that means to the database
* = "wildcard". Allows a partial letter string to be entered and implies either no or various extension on this letter string	Hyl*	Will find all uses of "Hyl . . ." anywhere in a record: e.g., Hylarana, Hyla, Hylidae, Hylinae, Hylaedactyla.
* = "wildcard". Allows a partial letter string to be entered and implies either no or various extension on this letter string	*Hyla	Will find all uses of ". . . hyla" anywhere in a record: e.g., Hyla, Hylidae, Plectrohyla, Ptychadena hylaea, Adenomera hylaedactyla
Single word	Hyla	Will find all records that contain stand-alone uses of Hyla: e.g., Hyla, Hyla arenicolor
Strings of words without quotation marks	Lithobates pipiens	Interprets this as "Lithobates OR pipiens" so will find the union of all records that contain either "Lithobates" or "pipiens": e.g., Lithobates omiltemanus, Hylorana pipiens
Strings of word with quotation marks	"Lithobates pipiens"	Interprets this as "Lithobates AND pipiens" so will return all records that have the character string "Lithobates pipiens" anywhere within a record: e.g., all members of the Lithobates pipiens complex.
AND statement. Means that the results of the search must include both words held together by an AND	Lithobates AND pipiens	Same as "Lithobates pipiens"
OR statement. Means that the results of the search will all records that have either of the terms held together by an OR	Lithobates OR "Costa Rica"	Recovers all records that contain the word "Lithobates" or "Costa Rica": 402 records inasmuch as this will include all records for the entire amphibian fauna of Costa Rica
Combining Boolean operators within the Basic Search box (AND, OR, NOT, quotation marks)	Lithobates AND "Costa Rica" NOT forreri	Recovers only records that contain the word Lithobates AND "Costa Rica", but excludes any record that contains the word "forreri" in any part of the record: 9 records
Printable HELP file

Anaxyrus speciosus (Girard, 1854)

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

Bufo speciosus Girard, 1854, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, 7: 86. Syntypes: USNM 2608 (Ringgold Barracks = Rio Grande City, Starr County, Texas, USA), 2610 (Brownsville, Cameron County, Texas, USA), 2611 and 131559 (Pesquiería Grande, Nuevo León, Mexico) according to Cochran, 1961, Bull. U.S. Natl. Mus., 220: 37. Kellogg, 1932, Bull. U.S. Natl. Mus., 160: 46, mentions only three types and does not include 131559. Type locality: "valley of the Río Bravo (Rio Grand del Norte) and to be not uncommon in the province [state] of New Leon [Nuevo León, Mexico]". Restricted to "Brownsville, Cameron County", Texas, USA, by Smith and Taylor, 1950, Univ. Kansas Sci. Bull., 33: 361.

Bufo spectabilis — Peters, 1874 "1873", Monatsber. Preuss. Akad. Wiss. Berlin, 1873: 747. Incorrect subsequent spelling of Bufo speciosus Girard.

Bufo lentiginosus speciosus — Garman, 1884, Bull. Essex Inst., 16: 43, by implication.

Bufo speciosus — Garman, 1888 "1887", Bull. Essex Inst., 19: 136; Bogert, 1960, in Lanyon and Tavolga (eds.), Anim. Sound Commun.: 195, 273; provisional elevation.

Bufo compactilis speciosus — Cope, 1889, Bull. U.S. Natl. Mus., 34: 273; Smith, 1947, Herpetologica, 4: 8.

Bufo pliocompactilis Wilson, 1968, Contr. Mus. Paleontol. Univ. Michigan, 22: 95. Holotype: UMMP V55430, a near complete left frontoparietal, by original designation. Type locality: WaKeeney, Ogalalla Formation, Trego County, Kansas, USA. [Miocene (Clarendonian) fossil.] A likely synonym of "Bufo compactilis" (in the sense of being what is now called Anaxyrus speciosus) by Sanchíz, 1998, Handb. Palaeoherpetol., 4: 126.

Anaxyrus speciosus — 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) speciosus — Fouquette and Dubois, 2014, Checklist N.A. Amph. Rept.: 308. See comment under Bufonidae regarding how this arrangement is part of a a system that requires widespread paraphyly.

Common Names

Western Toad (Yarrow, 1882, Bull. U.S. Natl. Mus., 24: 23).

Spadefoot Toad (as Bufo compactilis sensu lato: Strecker, 1915, Baylor Univ. Bull., 18: 51; Wright and Wright, 1933, Handb. Frogs Toads U.S. Canada: x).

Spade-footed Toad (as Bufo compactilis sensu lato: Wright and Wright, 1933, Handb. Frogs Toads U.S. Canada: 60).

Sonoran Toad (as Bufo compactilis sensu lato: Slevin, 1928, Occas. Pap. California Acad. Sci., 16: 97).

Sonoran Toad (Stebbins, 1951, Amph. W. North Am.: 255).

Northern Sonora Toad (Schmidt, 1953, Check List N. Am. Amph. Rept., Ed. 6: 62).

Texas Toad (Conant, Cagle, Goin, Lowe, Neill, Netting, Schmidt, Shaw, Stebbins, and Bogert, 1956, Copeia, 1956: 176; Stebbins, 1966, Field Guide W. North Am. Rept. Amph.: 63; Conant, 1975, Field Guide Rept. Amph. E. Cent. N. Am., Ed. 2: 313; Collins, Huheey, Knight, and Smith, 1978, Herpetol. Circ., 7: 11; Liner, 1994, Herpetol. Circ., 23: 17; 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; Stebbins, 2003, Field Guide W. Rept. Amph., Ed. 3: 215; Frost, McDiarmid, and Mendelson, 2008, in Crother (ed.), Herpetol. Circ., 37: 4; Liner and Casas-Andreu, 2008, Herpetol. Circ., 38: 8; 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).

Distribution

Southeastern New Mexico and western Oklahoma (USA) south throughout central and West Texas to central Tamaulipas, northern Nuevo León, northern and eastern Coahuila, and northeastern Chihuahua (Mexico).

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: Mexico, United States of America, United States of America - New Mexico, United States of America - Oklahoma, United States of America - Texas

Comment

In the Bufo cognatus group of Blair, 1972, Evol. Genus Bufo: 349. See comment under Bufo cognatus. Older literature confused this species with Anayxrus cognatus, Anayxrus mexicanus, and Anayxrus compactilis. Removed from the synonymy of Anayxrus compactilis (as Bufo) by Bogert, 1960, in Lanyon and Tavolga (eds.), Anim. Sound Commun.: 195, 273, where it had been placed (as Bufo spectabilis) by Peters, 1874 "1873", Monatsber. Preuss. Akad. Wiss. Berlin, 1873: 747 (although this had been disputed by Garman, 1888 "1887", Bull. Essex Inst., 19: 136). See Rogers, 1972, Copeia, 1972: 381–383, for discussion of morphological distinctiveness from other members of its species group. Cocroft and Ryan, 1995, Animal Behav., 49: 283–303, discussed advertisement call in an evolutionary context. Stebbins, 2003, Field Guide W. Rept. Amph., Ed. 3: 215–216, provided a brief account, figure, and map. Lemos-Espinal, 2007, Anf. Rept. Chihuahua Mexico: 41–42, provided an account (as Bufo speciosus) for Chihuahua, Mexico. Lemos-Espinal and Smith, 2007, Anf. Rept. Coahuila México: 38–39, provided an account (as Bufo speciosus) for Coahuila, Mexico. Oliver-López, Woolrich-Piña, and Lemos-Espinal, 2009, Fam. Bufonidae Mex.: 48–50, provided an account. Farr, Lazcano, and Lavín-Murcio, 2013, Herpetol. Rev., 44: 633, provided records for Tamaulipas, Mexico. Dayton and Painter, 2005, in Lannoo (ed.), Amph. Declines: 435–436, andDodd, 2013, Frogs U.S. and Canada, 1: 152–155, provided accounts that summarized relevant literature. Elliot, Gerhardt, and Davidson, 2009, Frogs and Toads of N. Am.: 146–147, provided an account, photos, and advertisement call. Altig and McDiarmid, 2015, Handb. Larval Amph. US and Canada: 184, provided an account of larval morphology and biology. Painter, Stuart, Giermakowski, and Pierce, 2017, Western Wildlife, 4: 35, commented on the status and county range in New Mexico, USA. Bassett, 2023, Reptiles & Amphibians, 30(e18486): 1–18, provided an updated county distribution map for Texas, USA.

External links:

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To search the NIH genetic sequence database, see GenBank
For additional information see AmphibiaWeb report
For information on conservation status and distribution see the IUCN Redlist
For information on distribution, habitat, and conservation see the Map of Life
For related information on conservation and images as well as observations see iNaturalist
For access to available specimen data for this species, from over 350 scientific collections, go to Vertnet.