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

Scaphiopus holbrookii (Harlan, 1835)

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Scaphiopodidae > Genus: Scaphiopus > Species: Scaphiopus holbrookii

Rana holbrookii Harlan, 1835, Med. Phys. Res.: 105. Type(s): ANSP according to the original publication, though not in recent type catalogues. Type locality: "South Carolina", USA; restricted to "Charleston", South Carolina, USA, by Schmidt, 1953, Check List N. Am. Amph. Rept., Ed. 6: 58. This restriction considered invalid by Fouquette and Dubois, 2014, Checklist N.A. Amph. Rept.: 261, for reason of not being based on evidence.

Scaphiopus solitarius Holbrook, 1836, N. Am. Herpetol., 1: 85. Types: Inlcuding Frog figured in pl 12; not now known to exist. Type locality: "Carolina, Georgia, and . . . Tennessee", USA; restricted to "Charleston, South Carolina", USA by Schmidt, 1953, Check List N. Am. Amph. Rept., Ed. 6: 58. This restriction considered invalid by Fouquette and Dubois, 2014, Checklist N.A. Amph. Rept.: 261, for reason of not being based on evidence. Synonymy (under Scaphiopus solitarius) by De Kay, 1842, Zool. New York, 1(3): 66, and Boulenger, 1882, Cat. Batr. Sal. Coll. Brit. Mus., Ed. 2: 434. Synonymy (under Scaphiopus holbrookii) by Cope, 1863, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, 15: 54; Jordan, 1878, Man. Vert. North. U.S., Ed. 2: 189; Cope, 1889, Bull. U.S. Natl. Mus., 34: 298; Stejneger and Barbour, 1917, Check List N. Am. Amph. Rept.: 26 (footnote).

Scaphiopus albus Garman, 1876, Proc. Am. Assoc. Adv. Sci., 25: 194. Syntypes: MCZ 1453 (12 specimens), according to Barbour and Loveridge, 1929, Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., 69: 334; Cochran, 1961, Bull. U.S. Natl. Mus., 220: 78 considered USNM 52403 a syntype (exchanged from MCZ), and Malnate, 1971, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, 123: 349, also considered ANSP 26111 a syntype. Type locality: "on the island of Key West, [Monroe County,] Fl[orid]a", USA. Synonymy by Stejneger and Barbour, 1917, Check List N. Am. Amph. Rept.: 26.

Scaphiopus holbrookii albus — Stejneger and Barbour, 1917, Check List N. Am. Amph. Rept.: 26. Distinction from Scaphiopus holbrooki holbrooki rejected by Duellman, 1955, Copeia, 1955: 141–143.

Scaphiopus (Scaphiopus) holbrookii — Tanner, 1939, Great Basin Nat., 1: 6; Dubois, 1987 "1986", Alytes, 5: 130.

Common Names

Solitary Frog (Scaphiopus solitarius [no longer recognized]: Wood, 1863, Illust. Nat. Hist., 3: 163).

Holbrook's Spade Foot (Scaphiopus holbrookii: Yarrow, 1882, Bull. U.S. Natl. Mus., 24: 25).

Holbrook's Spadefoot (Scaphiopus holbrookii holbrookii: Wright and Wright, 1933, Handb. Frogs Toads U.S. Canada: ix).

Hermit Spade-foot (Scaphiopus solitarius [no longer recognized]: De Kay, 1842, Zool. New York, 1(3): 66).

Hermit Spadefoot (Scaphiopus holbrookii holbrookii: Löding, 1922, Mus. Pap. Alabama Mus. Nat. Hist., 5: 9

Hermit Spadefoot (Scaphiopus holbrookii: Dickerson, 1906, The Frog Book: 53; Fowler, 1907, Annu. Rep. N.J. State Mus. for 1906: 92).

Solitary Spadefoot (Scaphiopus holbrookii: Jordan, 1878, Man. Vert. North. U.S., Ed. 2: 189; Jordan, 1884, Man. Vert. North. U.S., Ed. 4: 189; Brimley, 1907, J. Elisha Mitchell Sci. Soc., 23: 157; Tanner, 1939, Great Basin Nat., 1: 7).

Eastern Spadefoot (Scaphiopus holbrookii: Schmidt, 1953, Check List N. Am. Amph. Rept., Ed. 6: 58; Conant, Cagle, Goin, Lowe, Neill, Netting, Schmidt, Shaw, Stebbins, and Bogert, 1956, Copeia, 1956: 177; Conant, 1975, Field Guide Rept. Amph. E. Cent. N. Am., Ed. 2: 299; Collins, Huheey, Knight, and Smith, 1978, Herpetol. Circ., 7: 13; Collins, 1997, Herpetol. Circ., 25: 14; Crother, Boundy, Campbell, de Queiroz, Frost, Highton, Iverson, Meylan, Reeder, Seidel, Sites, Taggart, Tilley, and Wake, 2001 "2000", Herpetol. Circ., 29: 16; Frost, McDiarmid, and Mendelson, 2008, in Crother (ed.), Herpetol. Circ., 37: 11; Collins and Taggart, 2009, Standard Common Curr. Sci. Names N. Am. Amph. Turtles Rept. Crocodil., ed. 6: 9; Frost, McDiarmid, Mendelson, and Green, 2012, in Crother (ed.), Herpetol. Circ., 39: 21; Frost, Lemmon, McDiarmid, and Mendelson, 2017, in Crother (ed.), Herpetol. Circ., 43: 20).

Eastern Spadefoot Toad (Scaphiopus holbrooki: Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 96).

Key West Spadefoot (Scaphiopus holbrooki albus [no longer recognized]: Wright and Wright, 1933, Handb. Frogs Toads U.S. Canada: ix; Carr, 1940, Univ. Florida Biol. Sci. Ser., 3: 53; Schmidt, 1953, Check List N. Am. Amph. Rept., Ed. 6: 58; Conant, Cagle, Goin, Lowe, Neill, Netting, Schmidt, Shaw, Stebbins, and Bogert, 1956, Copeia, 1956: 177).

Distribution

Massachusetts to Florida and west to eastern Louisiana, then north through eastern Arkansas and southeastern Missouri, extreme southern Illinois, southern Indiana and southern Ohio, and all of Kentucky and Tennessee, USA.

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: United States of America, United States of America - Alabama, United States of America - Arkansas, United States of America - Connecticut, United States of America - Delaware, United States of America - Florida, United States of America - Georgia, United States of America - Illinois, United States of America - Indiana, United States of America - Kentucky, United States of America - Louisiana, United States of America - Maryland, United States of America - Massachusetts, United States of America - Mississippi, United States of America - Missouri, United States of America - New Jersey, United States of America - New York, United States of America - North Carolina, United States of America - Ohio, United States of America - Pennsylvania, United States of America - Rhode Island, United States of America - South Carolina, United States of America - Tennessee, United States of America - Virginia, United States of America - West Virginia

Endemic: United States of America

Comment

Wasserman, 1968, Cat. Am. Amph. Rept., 70: 1–2, Palis, 2005, in Lannoo (ed.), Amph. Declines: 511–513, and Dodd, 2013, Frogs U.S. and Canada, 2: 771–772, provided accounts that summarized relevant literature. Elliot, Gerhardt, and Davidson, 2009, Frogs and Toads of N. Am.: 256–259, provided an account, photos, and advertisement call. Altig and McDiarmid, 2015, Handb. Larval Amph. US and Canada: 249–250, provided an account of larval morphology and biology. See account of biology and life history in southern Florida by Meshaka and Lane, 2015, Herpetol. Conserv. Biol., 10 (Monogr. 5): 89–92. Guyer and Bailey, 2023, Frogs and Toads of Alabama: 46–49, provided a detailed account for Alabama, USA.

External links:

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For access to general information see Wikipedia
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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 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.