Bufo japonicus Temminck and Schlegel, 1838

Common 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).

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

Western and central Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu, as well as the Tanegashima Group of islands, Japan

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: Japan

Endemic: Japan

Comment

See comment under Bufo formosus. Also note that some of the literature of this species will be under the nomen dubium Bufo praetextatus as discussed by Kaiser, Kaiser, and Nishikawa, 2026, Zootaxa, 5792: 355–369. In the Bufo bufo group; considered a subspecies of Bufo bufo, in most pre-1980 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. Sawada, Aihara, and Kamijo, 2022, J. Asia-Pacific Biodiversity, 15: 345–353, developed a predictive model for the developing range of this introduced species (as Bufo japonicus) on Sado Island, Japan.  Dufresnes and Litvinchuk, 2022, Zool. J. Linn. Soc., 195: 700, discussed the justification for applying the name Bufo praetextatus over Bufo japonicus. Fukutani, Matsui, and Nishikawa, 2023, PeerJ, 11(e16302): 1–27, reported on hybrid zones between this lineage and Bufo formosus, noting a narrow hybrid zone in one area and broad zones in two others.  

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