Woodhouse's Toad

About the Woodhouse's Toad

Woodhouse's toad (Anaxyrus woodhousii) is a medium-sized (4 inches or 10 centimetres) true toad native to the United States and Mexico. There are three recognized subspecies. A. woodhousii tends to hybridize with Anaxyrus americanus where their ranges overlap.

Woodhouse's toad was first described in 1854 by the French herpetologist Charles Frédéric Girard. He gave it the name Bufo woodhousii in honor of the American physician and naturalist Samuel Washington Woodhouse. The large genus Bufo was split by Frost et al. in 2006, with the North American species being included in the genus Anaxyrus and this toad becoming A. woodhousii. There are three recognised subspecies:

Rocky Mountain toad – Anaxyrus woodhousii woodhousii (Girard, 1854) East Texas toad – Anaxyrus woodhousii velatus (Bragg and Sanders, 1951) Southwestern Woodhouse's toad – Anaxyrus woodhousii australis (Shannon & Lowe, 1955)

At one time, Fowler's toad (Anaxyrus fowleri) was considered to be a subspecies. Woodhouse's toad is a robust amphibian and can grow to a maximum snout-vent length of 127 mm (5 in). The head has prominent cranial crests in front of and in between the eyes. The parotoid... Wikipedia →