Bufo japonicus Temminck and Schlegel, 1838

English Names

Japanese Toad (Cochran, 1961, Living Amph. World: 96; Ananjeva, Borkin, Darevsky, and Orlov, 1988, Dict. Amph. Rept. Five Languages: 39; Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 42).

Eastern Japanese Common Toad (Bufo japonicus formosus: Maeda and Matsui, 1990, Frogs Toads Japan, Ed. 2: 19; Goris and Maeda, 2004, Guide Amph. Rept. Japan: 51).

Western Japanese Common Toad (Bufo japonicus japonicus: Maeda and Matsui, 1990, Frogs Toads Japan, Ed. 2: 19; Goris and Maeda, 2004, Guide Amph. Rept. Japan: 48).

Distribution

Extreme southern Hokkaido (introduced), Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu, as well as the Tanegashima Group of islands, Japan.

Comment

In the Bufo bufo group; considered a subspecies of Bufo bufo, in most old literature but considered a distinct species by Kawamura, Nishioka, and Ueda, 1980, Sci. Rep. Lab. Amph. Biol. Hiroshima Univ., 4: 1-125. See also Matsui, 1980, Annot. Zool. Japon., 53: 56-68, and Matsui, 1976, Japan. J. Herpetol., 6: 80-92. Matsui, 1984, Contrib. Biol. Lab. Kyoto Univ., 26: 210-428, revised the species, reported on morphometrics and geographic variation. See also Nishioka, Sumida, Ueda, and Wu, 1990, Sci. Rep. Lab. Amph. Biol. Hiroshima Univ., 10: 53-91, and Kawamura, Nishioka, Sumida, and Ryuzaki, 1990, Sci. Rep. Lab. Amph. Biol. Hiroshima Univ., 10: 1-51, for allozymic variation. Highton, 2000, in Bruce et al., Biol. Plethodontid Salamanders: 233, suggested that two species might be covered under this one name, these having parapatric contact at Neo-mura, Motoso-gun, Gifu Prefecture, Japan. See Maeda and Matsui, 1990, Frogs Toads Japan, Ed. 2: 18-23, for accounts. Goris and Maeda, 2004, Guide Amph. Rept. Japan: 48-52, provided accounts for Bufo japonicus japonicus and Bufo japonicus formosus. Yamazaki, Kouketsu, Fukuda, Araki, and Nambu, 2008, J. Herpetol., 42: 427-436, documented introgression of Bufo japonicus formosus with Bufo torrenticola. Comment by DRF: The taxonomy of this group is controversial in part by application of different species concepts. Those who apply the Biological Species concept tend to see nominal Bufo japonicus as composed of several allopatric subspecies, while those who apply the Phylogenetic Species concept tend to see multiple species. What does seem clear is that there are several units that are distinctive lineages and which may or may not be mechanistically reproductively isolated to various degrees. These are Bufo miyakonis from Miyako Island (see Bufo gargarizans account) in the Ryukyus, Bufo torrenticola (which introgresses with Bufo japonicus to an unknown degree), Bufo formosus (the "eastern form" of the Japanese toad), Bufo japonicus, the "western form" of the Japanese toad (with both the eastern and western clade containing subclades that warrant additional study as possibly coherent lineages), Bufo bankorensis from Taiwan, Bufo yakushimensis (from Yaku Island, Japan), and Bufo gargarizans from China. Recognition of Bufo torrenticola and Bufo yakushimensis as species distinct from Bufo japonicus (western mtDNA clade) appears to render the latter "paraphyletic" in the sense that its mtDNA form a paraphyletic series; whether this is incomplete lineage sorting or the result of introgression is not known. The status of Bufo japonicus montanus appears questionable on the basis of mtDNA that it should be considered separate from Bufo japonicus (eastern clade). Suzuki, Kawase, Hoshina, and Tokuda, 2020, Curr. Herpetol., Kyoto, 39: 47–54, employed mtDNA data to infer that the Hokkaido population of nominal Bufo japonicus formosus was derived from introductions from mid-eastern Honshu, Japan. Tanaka and Nishikawa, 2022, Curr. Herpetol., Kyoto, 41: 8–23, compared morphological larval development with that of Bufo torrenticola. 

External links:

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• For additional sources of information from other sites search Google
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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 related information on conservation and images as well as observation see iNaturalist; for a quick link to their maps see iNaturalist KML
• For access to available specimen data for this species, from over 350 scientific collections, go to Vertnet.