Anaxyrus boreas

The western toad is a large toad species, between 5.6 and 13 cm long, native to western North America. A. boreas is frequently encountered during the wet season on roads, or near water at other times. It can jump a considerable distance for a toad. Breeding occurs between March and July in mountainous areas, and as early as January in lower-elevation regions. The female lays up to 17,000 eggs stuck together in strings that adhere to vegetation and other objects along water edges.

Anaxyrus boreas

Walter Siegmund (talk) · CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
AnaxyrusPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Temnospondyli
Life habit
amphibiousPBDB, for Temnospondyli
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Temnospondyli
Environment
brackish,freshwater,terrestrialPBDB, for Tetrapoda

Time the record covers

At most 1.4 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 1.4 Mya and 11.7 ka, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Pleistocene — about 4 of 4 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 0 of 4 occurrences1.5–1.4 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences1.4–1.3 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences1.3–1.3 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences1.3–1.2 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences1.2–1.1 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences1.1–1.1 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences1.1–1.0 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences1.0–950 ka Mya — about 0.0 occurrences950 ka–887 ka Mya — about 0.0 occurrences887 ka–823 ka Mya — about 0.0 occurrences823 ka–760 ka Mya — about 0.0 occurrences760 ka–697 ka Mya — about 0.0 occurrences697 ka–633 ka Mya — about 0.0 occurrences633 ka–570 ka Mya — about 0.0 occurrences570 ka–507 ka Mya — about 0.0 occurrences507 ka–443 ka Mya — about 0.0 occurrences443 ka–380 ka Mya — about 0.0 occurrences380 ka–317 ka Mya — about 0.0 occurrences317 ka–253 ka Mya — about 0.0 occurrences253 ka–190 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences190 ka–127 ka Mya — about 0.7 occurrences127 ka–63 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence63 ka–0 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences1.9 Mya0 Mya

4 occurrences of Anaxyrus boreas on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

4 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

2 formations

La Habra — 33.60°N, 117.80°WPalos Verdes Sand — 33.60°N, 117.80°W

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The named rock units Anaxyrus boreas has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 2 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Anaxyrus boreas and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Anaxyrus boreas and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

182 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 4 sites for Anaxyrus boreas, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

3 references

Each of the 4 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content2

Picture of Anaxyrus boreas

Credit
Walter Siegmund (talk)
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

Sequential Section Scan

Licence
In Copyright
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Anaxyrus boreas · MCZ:SC:3237

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itAnaxyrus through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Baird and Girard 1852)