Coastal Plains Toad (Gulf Toad) - Incilius nebulifer
Here’s a Toad I came across last week on High Island, Texas. It was one of a pair of Toads I found under a piece of damp oak cordwood.
As you can see, it had very dark skin, ochre strips on its back and sides, and scattered small yellow polka-dots on its back. Its parotid glands (the big lumps behind its eyes) had a vaguely triangular shape, and the bony ridges between its eyes were prominent and branched to form ‘Y’ crests near the parotids.
Coastal Plains Toad (“Gulf Toad”) in my hand
It’s a Coastal Plains Toad! I was really hoping to see one of these on this trip. And to find two that were this pretty…wow.
Besides its beauty, I was also struck by how dorsoventrally compressed the Toad was. You can kind of see it in this photo:
Somewhat blurry photo of a Coastal Plains Toad (“Gulf Toad”) in my hand. This photo shows how flat the toads were.
It peed on my hand shortly after this photo, indicating that it was distressed. I felt kind of bad about that, so put the Toad back under its wood, with other Toad.
An addendum:
When I started writing this post, I thought that this Toad was the “Gulf Coast Toad”. And it was!
But…as I went to write this post, I discovered that this species of Toad have had a…confusing…set of name changes over the years.
Let me see if I can get this right.
When originally described, the Gulf Coast Toad’s genus was named Incilius. Wikipedia’s entry for the genus Incilius says that the name “…proved unpopular and these toads were known under the genus Bufo until the early 2000s”. Huh. That’s interesting.
So - until the early 2000s, taxonomists thought there was one species of this Toad, and it was called “Bufo valliceps”, the “Gulf Toad”. Its range stretched from Costa Rica all the way north to Louisiana.
Then scientists realized that Bufo valliceps was actually at least two species. The more southerly population kept the name Bufo valliceps, and the more new, more northerly species acquired the name Bufo nebulifer.
The newly described (northern) species of Bufo nebulifer also got a new common name - the “Coastal Plains Toad”. Bufo valliceps, the species in the southern part of the range, kept the common name “Gulf Coast Toad”.
Then scientists who were working on the toads realized that the original genus name, Incilius, had precedence over the genus name Bufo that most everybody was using.
Sooo…the genus name for both Bufo nebulifer and Bufo valliceps changed Incilius>, making the species _Incilius nebulifer and Incilius valliceps, respectively._
Confused yet? It gets worse. Older field guides - you know, the type that I use - will still use the original, _Bufo valliceps name, and treat the two species as a single species when discussing them._
Additionally, it seems that a lot of people are still using the common name “Gulf Coast Toad” for the northern species, properly called the “Coastal Plains Toad”. Which makes a good deal of sense, what with it being the Gulf Coast and all.
Sources:
Gone Froggin’s page on the Coastal Plains Toad
Wikipedia’s entry on the genus Incilius.
Wikipedia’s entry for Incilius nebulifer