Description
Description:
The Puerto Rican crested toad is medium sized, ranging from 64mm to 120mm snout-vent length and is easily recognized by its turned-up snout and bony head crest. Adults are brown to yellow-brown in color with black or brown patches and their ventral surfaces are creamy white with some dark mottling. Females are larger than males and display a more prominent crest (Photo below). During the breeding season, males exhibit yellow coloring on their sides and have dark nuptial pads on their first and second digits of the front feet. Juvenile toads are dark brown, exhibit a chevron marking on their backs (chevron pattern tends to disappear after 2 years of age) (Lentini, 2004) and have rust to salmon colored margins along their back and sides.
Male Crested Toad (above) showing smaller size and yellow coloration. Female Crested Toad (below) showing larger size and lacking yellow coloration. Photo taken during breeding season.
Video of male PRCT release call before Bd swabbing
Taxonomy:
Kingdom- Animalia
Phylum- Chordata
Class- Amphibia
Order- Anura
Family- Bufonidae
Peltophryne lemur Cope, 1869 “1868”, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, 20:311. Holotype: USNM, not located. Type locality: “Porto Rico, W[est]. I[ndies].”
Bufo panayanus Seoane, 1890, Mem. Soc. Zool. France, 3: 206. Types: not stated, presumably MNHNP. Type locality: “Ylioilo (Panay)”, Philippines; this considered erroneous by Boulenger, 1892, Zool. Rec., 27:26, and who considered it synonymous with Bufo gutturosus; corrected to Haiti or Santo Domingo by Stejneger, 1905, Science, 21: 472, who provided the current synonymy.
Bufo lemur Stejneger, 1904, Annu. Rep. U.S. Natl. Mus. For 1902: 570.
Bufo turpis Barbour, 1917, Proc. Biol. Soc. Washington, 30: 120. Holotype: MCZ 4099. Type locality: “Virgin Gorda, British Virgin Islands”. Synonymy by XXX.
Bufo lemur lemur barbour, 1937, Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., 82:97.
Bufo lemur turpis Barbour, 1937, Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., 82:97.
Peltophryne lemur Pregill, 1981, Copeia, 1981: 273.
Bufo lemur Hedges, 1996, Contr. W. Indian Herpetol.: XXX; Pramuk, 2000, J. Herpetol., 34: 334-340.
Peltophryne lemur Frost, et al, 2006, The Amphibian Tree of Life. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 297:1-370.
Reference:
Frost, Darrel R. 2004. Amphibian Species of the World: an Online Reference. Version 3.0 (22 August, 2004). Electronic Database accessible at http:/research.amnh.org/herpetology/amphibian/index. php. American Museum of Natural History, New York, USA.