Bufo Garsault, 1764

Common Names

Toads (common usage).

Stream Toads (Torrentophryne: Fei and Ye, 2016, Amph. China, 1: 803). 

Island Toads (Dinesh, Radhakrishnan, Deepak, and Kulkarni, 2023, Fauna India Checklist, vers. 5.0 : 2). 

Distribution

Temperate Eurasia and Japan south to North Africa, the Middle East, northeastern and western Myanmar and through China to northern Vietnam.

Comment

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, removed most of the species of former "Bufo" to other genera and restricted the name Bufo to members of the Bufo bufo group of earlier authors. However, many species, because of being little-known were left in taxonomic limbo as members of "Bufo" and unassigned to genus. Literature and work to 1972 on Bufo (sensu lato, including what are now several other genera) were summarized in Blair, 1972, Evol. Genus Bufo. Tihen, 1962, Am. Midl. Nat., 62: 157–183, discussed osteological variation and species groups with Bufo (sensu lato). See Mertens and Wermuth, 1960, Amph. Rept. Europas: 45–48, for synonymies of European species. See Hu, Jiang, and Tian, 1984, Acta Herpetol. Sinica, Chengdu, N.S.,, 3 (1): 79–85, for review of Chinese species. Maeda and Matsui, 1989, Frogs Toads Japan, Ed. 1, reviewed Japanese species. Graybeal, 1997, Zool. J. Linn. Soc., 119: 297–338, discussed phylogeny in the group as part of a conceptually larger and paraphyletic "Bufo". Smith and Chiszar, 2006, Herpetol. Conserv. Biol., 1: 6–8, implied that a relatively large number of bufonid genera (e.g., Ansonia, Mertensophryne, Schsmaderma) should be considered as subgenera of Bufo; see comment under Bufonidae. The status of Torrentophryne is controversial. Liu, Lathrop, Fu, Yang, and Murphy, 2000, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 14: 423–435, and 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: 215, on the basis of molecular evidence suggested that this presumably monophyletic group is imbedded within and otherwise paraphyletic Bufo (sensu stricto). That recognition of Torrentophryne renders a paraphyletic Bufo has not been addressed by those who want to recognize it as a genus (e.g., Fei, Ye, and Jiang, 2003, Acta Zootaxon. Sinica, 28: 762–766; Yang, 2008, in Yang and Rao (ed.), Amph. Rept. Yunnan: 53–64). The transfer, therefore of a number of species from "Bufo" into Torrentophryne (diagnosed by the possession in the larvae of a ventral sucker) by Yang, 2008, in Yang and Rao (ed.), Amph. Rept. Yunnan: 51–62. Van Bocxlaer, Biju, Loader, and Bossuyt, 2009, BMC Evol. Biol., 9 (e131): 131, and Van Bocxlaer, Loader, Roelants, Biju, Menegon, and Bossuyt, 2010, Science, 327: 679–682, suggested that Bufo is the sister taxon of Epidalea and that nominal Torrentophryne is imbedded within Bufo, requiring its synonymy. Speybroeck, Beukema, and Crochet, 2010, Zootaxa, 2492: 6–7, regarded Epidalea and Bufotes to be junior synonyms of Bufo on the basis of plesiomorphic retention of the ability to hybridize without regard to monophyly. Dubois and Bour, 2010, Zootaxa, 2447: 14, regarded several nominal genera as subgenera on the basis of retention of plesiomorphies to form a "Bufo" that is clearly paraphyletic on the basis of the most recent phylogenetic analysis: Van Bocxlaer, Loader, Roelants, Biju, Menegon, and Bossuyt, 2010, Science, 327: 679–682. The nomenclatural position taken here, that of Dubois, 1984, Mem. Mus. Natl. Hist. Nat. Paris, A—Zool., 131: 1–64, and Dubois and Bour, 2010, Zootaxa, 2447: 1–52, was challenged by Welter-Schultes and Klug, 2011, Zootaxa, 2814: 50–58. The former authors argue that Bufo Garsault, 1764, applies to the former Bufo bufo group, and that Bufo Laurenti, 1768, is a different name (homonym) that applies to the former Bufo viridis group, while the latter authors argue, I think inccorrectly, that Bufo Garsault, 1764 = Bufo Fitzinger, 1768. I have retained Bufo for the former Bufo bufo group and Bufotes for the Bufo viridis group following Dubois and Bour. Dubois and Bour, 2010, Zootaxa, 2447: 1–52, also suggested an over-arching taxonomy of bufonds discussed under the relevant generic headings. Pyron and Wiens, 2011, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 61: 543–583, confirmed the monophyly of this taxon (although this is obscured by their explicit adoption of an out-dated and non-monophyletic taxonomy) and provided a tree of exemplar species. Recuero, Canestrelli, Vörös, Szabó, Poyarkov, Arntzen, Crnobrnja-Isailovic, Kidov, Cogǎlniceanu, Caputo, Nascetti, and Martínez-Solano, 2012, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 62: 71–86, provided a revision and molecular phylogeny of the Bufo bufo complex and redelimited species boundaries. Garcia-Porta, Litvinchuk, Crochet, Romano, Géniez, Lo-Valvo, Lymberakis, and Carranza, 2012, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 63: 113–130, also discussed the phylogenetics and biogeography of the Bufo bufo complex and largely confirmed the conclusions of Recuero et al., 2012, although differing in the interpretation of mtDNA variation across ranges. In addition, they applied a biological species concept and therefore regarded Bufo spinosus and Bufo bufo as subspecies of a larger Bufo bufo. Fouquette and Dubois, 2014, Checklist N.A. Amph. Rept.: 290, considered a large number of bufonid genera as subgenera of Bufo, cherry-picking their citation to literature (excluding any reference to  Van Bocxlaer, Biju, Loader, and Bossuyt, 2009, BMC Evol. Biol., 9 (e131): 1–10, Van Bocxlaer, Loader, Roelants, Biju, Menegon, and Bossuyt, 2010, Science, 327: 679–682, or Pyron and Wiens, 2011, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 61: 543–583, which provided results not congruent with the story that Fouquette and Dubois wanted to tell) to avoid recognizing that treating this these taxa of Bufo also requires under current understanding of phylogeny all Old-World bufonids, such as Sabahphrynus, Nectophryne, and Ansonia to be treated as subgenera of Bufo as well. Moreover, their recognition of Torrentophryne as a subgenus renders their subgenus Bufo paraphyletic, not an acceptable resolution in 2014. Fei and Ye, 2016, Amph. China, 1:803–820, provided an accounts for their Torrentophryne, photographs, and spot map for China. Özdemir, Dursun, Üzüm, Kutrup, and Gül, 2020, Amphibia-Reptilia, 41: 399–411, reported on the biogeography and systematics of Bufo bufo and Bufo verrucosissimus in Türkiye. Othman, Litvinchuk, Maslova, Dahn, Messenger, Andersen, Jowers, Kojima, Skorinov, Yasumiba, Chuang, Chen, Bae, Hoti, Jang, and Borzée, 2022, eLife, 11(e70494): 1–42, reported on the systematics and phylogeography of the species of the Eastern Palearctic region. 

Contained taxa (26 sp.):

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