Bufonidae

A true toad is any member of the family Bufonidae, in the order Anura. This is the only family of anurans in which all members are known as toads, although some may be called frogs. The bufonids now comprise more than 35 genera, Bufo being the best known.

Bufonidae

Jan Willem Broekema from Leiden, The Netherlands · CC BY-SA 2.0 · 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
Also called
toadPBDB
Sits inside
NeobatrachiaPBDB
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 65 million years on record.

The record covers at least 66 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 83.6 Mya to 0 Mya.

Late Cretaceous — about 1 of 494 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 1 of 494 occurrencesPaleoceneEocene — about 1 of 494 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 2 of 494 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 78 of 494 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 66 of 494 occurrencesPleistocene — about 322 of 494 occurrences85–82 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences82–80 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences80–77 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences77–74 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences74–71 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences71–68 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences68–65 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences60–57 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences57–54 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences43–40 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences40–37 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences37–34 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences34–31 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences31–28 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences28–26 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences26–23 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences23–20 Mya — about 2 occurrences20–17 Mya — about 5 occurrences17–14 Mya — about 13 occurrences14–11 Mya — about 18 occurrences11–8.5 Mya — about 17 occurrences8.5–5.7 Mya — about 21 occurrences5.7–2.8 Mya — about 63 occurrences2.8–0 Mya — about 350 occurrences66 Mya11.7 ka85 Mya0 Mya

494 occurrences of Bufonidae 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

494 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

52 formations

Alamosa — 37.37°N, 105.75°WAsh Hollow — 41.30°N, 101.89°WAsh Hollow — 43.40°N, 100.60°WAsh Hollow — 42.30°N, 98.00°WAsh Hollow — 42.63°N, 100.05°WOgallala — 39.08°N, 99.75°WOgallala — 39.91°N, 99.52°WValentine — 42.78°N, 100.03°WValentine — 42.80°N, 100.80°WValentine — 42.81°N, 100.05°WValentine — 42.49°N, 98.11°WRexroad — 37.20°N, 100.30°WRexroad — 37.13°N, 100.48°WMonte Hermoso — 38.97°S, 61.70°WSpilia — 41.15°N, 23.48°ELong Pine — 42.38°N, 98.23°WUpper Freshwater Molasse — 48.44°N, 11.04°EUpper Freshwater Molasse — 48.66°N, 10.23°EUpper Freshwater Molasse — 48.63°N, 11.80°EMcPherson — 38.30°N, 97.60°WBidahochi — 35.80°N, 110.10°WKingsdown — 37.05°N, 100.50°WKingsdown — 37.20°N, 100.30°WSt. David — 31.97°N, 110.30°WUnterer Travertin — 50.97°N, 11.35°EUnterer Travertin — 50.95°N, 11.38°EShanwang — 36.52°N, 118.54°ECromer Forest Bed — 52.94°N, 1.25°E"unnamed sandstone" — 33.90°N, 117.00°WStudienka — 48.20°N, 17.98°EWicomico — 29.42°N, 82.22°WWicomico — 29.60°N, 82.42°WCórcoles — 40.47°N, 2.68°WBrochero — 31.79°S, 65.02°WUquía — 23.24°S, 65.36°Wfacies à Congeria — 45.05°N, 7.93°EColombacci — 44.22°N, 11.77°E

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The named rock units Bufonidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 28 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 359 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Bufonidae and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Bufonidae and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

2,915 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 344 sites for Bufonidae, and this reads 240 of them. Of that, one read hit the database's own return limit, so every count below is a floor rather than a total. 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

184 references

Each of the 494 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. 172 further references are not listed. 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 Bufonidae

Credit
Jan Willem Broekema from Leiden, The Netherlands
Licence
CC BY-SA 2.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
Commercial use
the licence does not allow it

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 itNeobatrachia through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Gray 1825