European spadefoot toad

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European Spadefoot Toads
Pelobates fuscus
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Amplaphier Suborder: Mesobatrachia Family: Pelobatidae Genus: Pelobates
The distribution of Pelobatidae (in black).
Species
See Text

The European toads (Pelobatidae) are a family of frogs with only one genus Pelobates, containing four species. They are native to Europe, the Mediterranean, northwestern Africa and western Asia.

The European spadefoot toads are small to large sized frogs, which are often inconspicuously coloured. They are predominantly fossorial (burrowing) frogs, which burrow in sandy soils. They have a hardened protrusion on their feet which allows for them to bury themselves without damaging their softer feet. They will emerge from the ground during periods of rain and breed in pools, which are usually temporary. All of the species from this family have free-living, aquatic tadpoles.

[edit] Taxonomy

The seven species of American Spadefoot Toads (genera Scaphiopus and Spea) were previously also included into the Pelobatidae family, but are now generally regarded as the separate family Scaphiopodidae.

• Western Spadefoot Toad  (Pelobates cultripes)
• Common Spadefoot  (Pelobates fuscus)
• Eastern Spadefoot Toad  (Pelobates syriacus)
  
• Moroccan Spadefoot Toad  (Pelobates varaldii)

The earliest fossil genus of pelobatids, Elkobatrachus, was described in 2006. [1]

[edit] References

• Gissi, Carmela; Diego San Mauro, Graziano Pesole and Rafael Zardoya (February 2006). "Mitochondrial phylogeny of Anura (Amphibia): A case study of congruent phylogenetic reconstruction using amino acid and nucleotide characters". Gene 366: 228–237. doi:10.1016/j.gene.2005.07.034. 
• Roelants, Kim; Franky Bossuyt (February 2005). "Archaeobatrachian paraphyly and pangaean diversification of crown-group frogs". Systematic Biology 54: 111–126. doi:10.1080/10635150590905894. 
• San Mauro, Diego; Miguel Vences, Marina Alcobendas, Rafael Zardoya and Axel Meyer (May 2005). "Initial diversification of living amphibians predated the breakup of Pangaea" (^{[dead link]}). American Naturalist 165: 590–599. doi:10.1086/429523. 

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