Spea Cope, 1866

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Scaphiopodidae > Genus: Spea
4 species

Spea Cope, 1866, J. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, Ser. 2, 6: 81. Type species: Scaphiopus bombifrons Cope, 1863, by original designation.

Neoscaphiopus Taylor, 1942, Univ. Kansas Sci. Bull., 28: 203. Type species: Neoscaphiopus noblei Taylor, 1942 [a fossil taxon], by original designation. Synonymy by Tihen, 1960, Copeia, 1960: 93.

English Names

Western Spadefoots (Liner, 1994, Herpetol. Circ., 23: 28; 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: 12; Liner and Casas-Andreu, 2008, Herpetol. Circ., 38: 23; 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: 22; Frost, Lemmon, McDiarmid, and Mendelson, 2017, in Crother (ed.), Herpetol. Circ., 43: 20).

Western Spadefoot Toads (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 96).

Distribution

Western North America.

Comment

Wiens and Titus, 1991, Herpetologica, 47: 21–28, suggested a phylogeny of Spea multiplicata + (Spea hammondii + (Spea intermontanus Oregon + (Spea intermontanus Colorado + Spea bombifrons))). Van Devender, Mead, and Rea, 1991, Southwest. Nat., 36: 302–314, on the basis of guesses at the future of Spea evolution considered Spea hammondii and Spea multiplicata to be conspecific. Dubois, 1987 "1986", Alytes, 5: 130, regarded Spea as a subgenus of Scaphiopus. See also Tanner, 1989, Great Basin Nat., 49: 503–510, for discussion of interageneric relationships. See comment under Scaphiopus. Powell, Collins, and Hooper, 2011, Key Herpetofauna U.S. & Canada, 2nd Ed.: 38, provided a key to the species.

Contained taxa (4 sp.):

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