Incilius alvarius (Girard, 1859)
Bufo alvarius Girard In Baird, 1859, Rep. U.S-Mex. Bound. Surv., 2(Pt. 2-Rept.): 26. Syntypes: USNM 2571-72, according to Kellogg, 1932, Bull. U.S. Natl. Mus., 160: 38-39 (see discussion by Fouquette, 1968, Great Basin Nat., 28: 70-72); USNM 2572 considered "holotype" by Cope, 1889, Bull. U.S. Natl. Mus., 34: 267 (constituting a lectotype designation by implication), and subsequently designated lectotype formally by Fouquette, 1968, Great Basin Nat., 28: 71. Type locality: "Valley of the Gila and Colorado [Rivers]"; corrected to "Fort Yuma, Cal[ifornia].", USA by Cope, 1889, Bull. U.S. Natl. Mus., 34: 267; restricted to "Yuma", Yuma Co., Arizona by Smith and Taylor, 1950, Univ. Kansas Sci. Bull., 33: 355; restricted to "Colorado River bottomlands below Yuma, Arizona", USA, by Schmidt, 1953, Check List N. Am. Amph. Rept., Ed. 6: 61; corrected to "[old] Fort Yuma, Imperial County, California (on the north bank of the Colorado River, opposite its junction with the Gila River", USA, by Fouquette, 1968, Great Basin Nat., 28: 70-72.
Phrynoidis alvarius — Cope, 1862, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, 14: 358.
Cranopsis alvaria — 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 alvaria — Frost, Grant, and Mendelson, 2006, Copeia, 2006: 558. by implication.
Incilius alvarius — Frost, Mendelson, and Pramuk, 2009, Copeia, 2009: 418-419. By implication.
English Names
Girard's Toad (Yarrow, 1882, Bull. U.S. Natl. Mus., 24: 23).
Colorado River Toad (Storer, 1925, Univ. California Publ. Zool., 27: 43; Wright and Wright, 1933, Handb. Frogs Toads U.S. Canada: ix; Stebbins, 1951, Amph. W. North Am.: 229; Schmidt, 1953, Check List N. Am. Amph. Rept., Ed. 6: 61; Conant, Cagle, Goin, Lowe, Neill, Netting, Schmidt, Shaw, Stebbins, and Bogert, 1956, Copeia, 1956: 176; Stebbins, 1966, Field Guide W. North Am. Rept. Amph.: 59; Collins, Huheey, Knight, and Smith, 1978, Herpetol. Circ., 7: 10; Liner, 1994, Herpetol. Circ., 23: 16; Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 40; Collins, 1997, Herpetol. Circ., 25: 11; Crother, Boundy, Campbell, de Queiroz, Frost, Highton, Iverson, Meylan, Reeder, Seidel, Sites, Taggart, Tilley, and Wake, 2001 "2000", Herpetol. Circ., 29: 6).
Giant Toad (Slevin, 1928, Occas. Pap. California Acad. Sci., 16: 108).
Sonoran Desert Toad (Stebbins, 1985, Field Guide W. Rept. Amph., Ed. 2: 69; Stebbins, 2003, Field Guide W. Rept. Amph., Ed. 3: 207; Frost, McDiarmid, and Mendelson, 2008, in Crother (ed.), Herpetol. Circ., 37: 9; Liner and Casas-Andreu, 2008, Herpetol. Circ., 38: 18; Collins and Taggart, 2009, Standard Common Curr. Sci. Names N. Am. Amph. Turtles Rept. Crocodil., ed. 6: 6; Frost, McDiarmid, Mendelson, and Green, 2012, in Crother (ed.), Herpetol. Circ., 39: 16).
Distribution
Extreme southeastern California, southern Arizona, and extreme southwestern New Mexico (USA) south through Sonora and to northwestern Sinaloa (Mexico) in arid tropical scrub and desert up to oak woodland and juniper-grassland, 0-1763 m elevation.
Comment
Reviewed by Fouquette, 1970, Cat. Am. Amph. Rept., 93: 1-4. In the monotypic Bufo alvarius group of Martin, 1972, in Blair (ed.), Evol. Genus Bufo: 40. Stebbins, 2003, Field Guide W. Rept. Amph., Ed. 3: 207-208, provided a brief account, figure, and map. Mendelson, Mulcahy, Williams, and Sites, 2011, Zootaxa, 3138: 1-34, suggested on the basis of morphology and molecular evidence that Incilius alvarius is the sister taxon of Incilius occidentalis + Incilius mccoyi and otherwise in an unnamed monophyletic group (the name Incilius alvarius group is availabe-DRF) including Incilius alvarius, Incilius occidentalis, Incilius mccoyi, and Incilius tacanensis.
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 additional sources of information from other sites search Google
- For images search Arkive, CalPhoto Images and Google Images
- To search the NIH genetic sequence database, see GenBank
- For information aggregation from other sites and some original accounts see AmphibiaWeb report
- For further information on conservation status and distribution see the IUCN Redlist
- For related information on conservation and images as well as observation see iNaturalist;
- for a quick link to their maps see iNaturalist KML
- For access to informatoin on fossils see Lisanfos
