Spea bombifrons

The plains spadefoot toad is a species of American spadefoot toad which ranges from southwestern Canada, throughout the Great Plains of the western United States, and into northern Mexico. Like other species of spadefoot toads, they get their name from a spade-like projection on their hind legs which allows them to dig into sandy soils. Their name, in part, comes from their keratinized metatarsals, which are wide instead of "sickle shaped". The species name translates as buzzing leaf shaped. This refers to the species' distinguishing features; its buzzing mating call, and its leaf-shaped digging metatarsals. It was first described by Cope in 1863.

Spea bombifrons

Stanley Trauth · CC BY-SA 2.5 · 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
Also called
Plains spadefootPBDB
Sits inside
SpeaPBDB
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 least 12 million years on record.

The record covers at least 12.5 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 16.3 Mya to 11.7 ka.

Miocene — about 3 of 22 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 0 of 22 occurrencesPleistocene — about 19 of 22 occurrencesPleistocene17–16 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences16–16 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences16–15 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences15–15 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences15–14 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences14–13 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences13–13 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences13–12 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1.7–1.1 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences1.1–560 ka Mya — about 6 occurrences560 ka–0 Mya — about 13 occurrences12.5 Mya129 ka16.8 Mya0 Mya

22 occurrences of Spea bombifrons 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

22 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

5 formations

Alamosa — 37.37°N, 105.75°WValentine — 42.78°N, 100.03°WValentine — 42.81°N, 100.05°WMcPherson — 38.30°N, 97.60°WCrooked Creek — 37.20°N, 100.30°WKingsdown — 37.20°N, 100.30°W

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The named rock units Spea bombifrons has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 3 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Spea bombifrons and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Spea bombifrons and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

290 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 22 sites for Spea bombifrons, 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

8 references

Each of the 22 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 content1

Picture of Spea bombifrons

Credit
Stanley Trauth
Licence
CC BY-SA 2.5
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Spea bombifrons was found in Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

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 itSpea through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Cope 1863)