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

Spea bombifrons (Cope, 1863)

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Scaphiopodidae > Genus: Spea > Species: Spea bombifrons

Scaphiopus bombifrons Cope, 1863, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, 15: 53. Syntypes: USNM 3704 (Fort Union), 3520 (Platte River), and 3703 (Llano Estacado). USNM 3704 designated lectotype by Fouquette and Dubois, 2014, Checklist N.A. Amph. Rept.: 263. Type locality: "Fort Union, on Missouri River, lat. 48° N"; "On Platte River, 200 miles west of Fort Kearney"; "Llano Estacado Texas". Restricted invalidly to "Fort Union", North Dakota, USA, by Schmidt, 1953, Check List N. Am. Amph. Rept., Ed. 6: 59, and validly by lectotype designation by Fouquette and Dubois, 2014.

Spea bombifrons — Cope, 1866, J. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, Ser. 2, 6: 81.

Scaphiopus bombifrons — Boulenger, 1882, Cat. Batr. Sal. Coll. Brit. Mus., Ed. 2: 435.

Scaphiopus hammondii bombifrons — Cope, 1889, Bull. U.S. Natl. Mus., 34: 306.

Scaphiopus (Spea) bombifrons — Tanner, 1939, Great Basin Nat., 1: 11; Dubois, 1987 "1986", Alytes, 5: 130.

Spea bombifrons — Firschein, 1950, Herpetologica, 6: 75; Tanner, 1989, Great Basin Nat., 49: 56; Wiens and Titus, 1991, Herpetologica, 47: 21-28.

Common Names

Cope's Spea (Yarrow, 1882, Bull. U.S. Natl. Mus., 24: 24).

Spadefoot of the Western Plains (Dickerson, 1906, The Frog Book: 61).

Central Plains Spadefoot Toad (Smith, 1934, Am. Midl. Nat., 15: 427; Tanner, 1939, Great Basin Nat., 1: 12).

Central Plains Spadefoot (Stebbins, 1951, Amph. W. North Am.: 202; Schmidt, 1953, Check List N. Am. Amph. Rept., Ed. 6: 59).

Plains Spadefoot (Strecker, 1915, Baylor Univ. Bull., 18: 54; 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: 301; Collins, Huheey, Knight, and Smith, 1978, Herpetol. Circ., 7: 13; 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; Stebbins, 2003, Field Guide W. Rept. Amph., Ed. 3: 205; 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).

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

Distribution

Southern Alberta and southwestern Saskatchewan (Canada) southward through Montana, North Dakota, and Nebraska and eastern Colorado to southeastern Utah, northeastern and southeastern Arizona, central Missouri, Oklahoma, and western and South Texas (USA) to Chihuahua, and Tamaulipas (Mexico).

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: Canada, Mexico, United States of America, United States of America - Arizona, United States of America - Arkansas, United States of America - Colorado, United States of America - Iowa, United States of America - Kansas, United States of America - Missouri, United States of America - Montana, United States of America - Nebraska, United States of America - New Mexico, United States of America - North Dakota, United States of America - Oklahoma, United States of America - South Dakota, United States of America - Texas, United States of America - Utah, United States of America - Wyoming

Comment

Stebbins, 2003, Field Guide W. Rept. Amph., Ed. 3: 205-206, provided a brief account, figure, and map. Lemos-Espinal, 2007, Anf. Rept. Chihuahua Mexico: 63–64, provided an account for Chihuahua, Mexico. Farrar and Hey, 2005, in Lannoo (ed.), Amph. Declines: 513–514, and Dodd, 2013, Frogs U.S. and Canada, 2: 777–785, provided extensive accounts that summarized the relevant literature and range. Elliot, Gerhardt, and Davidson, 2009, Frogs and Toads of N. Am.: 266–267, provided an account, photos, and advertisement call. Altig and McDiarmid, 2015, Handb. Larval Amph. US and Canada: 250–252, provided an account of larval morphology and biology. Hernandez, Herr, Stevens, Cork, Medina-Nava, Vialpando, Warfel, Fields, Brodie, and Graham, 2019, Check List, 15: 83, provided a record for Ojinaga municipality, north-eastern Chihuahua, Mexico. Bassett, 2023, Reptiles & Amphibians, 30(e18486): 1–18, provided an updated county distribution map for Texas, USA.

External links:

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For access to general information see Wikipedia
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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 information on distribution, habitat, and conservation see the Map of Life
For related information on conservation and images as well as observations see iNaturalist