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

Incilius coniferus (Cope, 1862)

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Bufonidae > Genus: Incilius > Species: Incilius coniferus

Bufo coniferus Cope, 1862, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, 14: 158. Holotype: USNM 4335 according to Cochran, 1961, Bull. U.S. Natl. Mus., 220: 32. Type locality: "Turbo region, New Granada" = Chocó, Colombia, according to Cochran and Goin, 1970, Bull. U.S. Natl. Mus., 288: 109.

Chilophryne conifera — Cope, 1862, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, 14: 358.

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

Bufo auritus Cope, 1875 "1876", J. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, Ser. 2, 8: 99. Syntypes: 2 specimens, including USNM 30676, according to Cochran, 1961, Bull. U.S. Natl. Mus., 220: 31, other not located, possibly originally in Philadelphia Museum or ANSP and now lost. Type locality: "East coast region"; corrected to "Costa Rica, coast of eastern or east coast region, Cantón de Limón", by Savage, 1974, Rev. Biol. Tropical, 22: 89. Homonym of Bufo auritus Raddi, 1823 (= Ceratophrys aurita). Synonymy with Bufo gabbi by Cochran, 1961, Bull. U.S. Natl. Mus., 220: 31; with Bufo coniferus by Savage, 2002, Amph. Rept. Costa Rica: 208.

Bufo ehlersi Werner, 1899, Verh. Zool. Bot. Ges. Wien, 49: 481. Holotype: Originally ZIUG, now ZFMK 21414 according to Böhme and Bischoff, 1984, Bonn. Zool. Monogr., 19: 178. Type locality: "El Bergell, über Guaduas, 1400 m", Colombia. Synonymy by Boulenger, 1900, Zool. Rec., 36: 29; Günther, 1901, Biol. Centr. Amer., Rept. Batr., Vol. 7, Part 162: 251; Nieden, 1923, Das Tierreich, 46: 133.

Bufo gabbi Taylor, 1952, Univ. Kansas Sci. Bull., 35: 619. Replacement name for Bufo auritus Cope, 1875.

Bufo conifer — Duellman, 1993, Univ. Kansas Mus. Nat. Hist. Spec. Publ., 21: 25. Incorrect subsequent spelling (Art. 32.5.1, 1999 Code).

Cranopsis conifera — 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: 364.

Ollotis conifera — Frost, Grant, and Mendelson, 2006, Copeia, 2006: 558, by implication.

Incilius coniferus — Frost, Mendelson, and Pramuk, 2009, Copeia, 2009: 418–419, by implication.

Common Names

Coniferous Toad (Coloma and Duellman, 2025, Amph. Ecuador. Vol. 2: xxxi).

Green Climbing Toad (Salazar-Saavedra, 2025, Rev. Nicaraguense Biodiversidad, 114: 16).

Evergreen Toad (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 41).

Sapo Conifero (Spanish: Coloma and Duellman, 2025, Amph. Ecuador. Vol. 2: xxxi).

Sapo Escalador de Espinas (Spanish: Salazar-Saavedra, 2025, Rev. Nicaraguense Biodiversidad, 114: 16).

Talamanca Toad (Bufo gabbi [no longer recognized]: Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 41).

Distribution

East-central to southern Nicaragua; Costa Rica and Panama on both Atlantic and Pacific slopes, extending to Pacific lowlands and foothills of Colombia and northwestern Ecuador (Esmeraldas, Carchi, and Pichincha provinces), sea level to 1550 m elevation.

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Panama

Comment

In the former Bufo valliceps group of Martin, 1972, in Blair (ed.), Evol. Genus Bufo: 49. See Taylor, 1952, Univ. Kansas Sci. Bull., 35: 611–615, and Cochran and Goin, 1970, Bull. U.S. Natl. Mus., 288: 109, for accounts. Lips and Savage, 1996, Proc. Biol. Soc. Washington, 109: 17–26, included this species (as Bufo coniferus) in a key to the tadpoles found in Costa Rica. Nicaragua record by Köhler, 1999, Cour. Forschungsinst. Senckenb., 213: 14. See account by Savage, 2002, Amph. Rept. Costa Rica: 207–208. See comments by Sunyer, Páiz, Dehling, and Köhler, 2009, Herpetol. Notes, 2: 189–202, regarding Nicaraguan populations. Travers, Townsend, Sunyer, Obando, Wilson, and Nickerson, 2011, Herpetol. Rev., 42: 399, noted a new locality in Nicaragua (Jinotega). Mendelson, Mulcahy, Williams, and Sites, 2011, Zootaxa, 3138: 1–34, suggested that this species is a member of a monophyletic Incilius coniferus group that includes Incilius coniferus, Incilius chompipe, Incilius epioticus, Incilius fastidiosus, Incilius guanacastes, Incilius holdridgei, Incilius karenlipsae, Incilius periglenes, and Incilius peripatetes. Köhler, 2011, Amph. Cent. Am.: 104–115, compared this species to others in Central America and provided a range map and photograph. Martínez-Fonseca, Holmes, Sunyer, Westeen, Grundler, Cerda, Fernández-Mena, Loza-Molina, Monagan, Nondorf, Pandelis, and Rabosky, 2024, Check List, 20: 62, provided a record from Refugio Bartola, Departamento Río San Juan, Nicaragua, 60 m elevation. Coloma and Duellman, 2025, Amph. Ecuador. Vol. 2: 251–254, provided an account, with photographs, which summarized identification, adult and larval morphology, systematics, natural history, distribution (including a dot map for Ecuador), and conservation.

External links:

Please note: these links will take you to external websites not affiliated with the American Museum of Natural History. We are not responsible for their content.

For access to general information see Wikipedia
For additional sources of general information from other websites search Google
For access to relevant technical literature search Google Scholar
For images search CalPhoto Images and Google Images
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 observations see iNaturalist
For additional information specific to Ecuador see FaunaWebEcuador: Anfibios del Ecuador