| Incilius
periglenes |
HOME |
| |
| Kingdom |
Animalia |
A
male Golden Toad. Photographed by Charles H. Smith. This image or recording is the work of an U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service employee, taken or made during the course of an
employee's official duties. As a work of the U.S. federal
government, the
image is in the public domain.
A
female Golden Toad.
© 2003 Richard Sage.
All rights reserved. |
| Phylum |
Chordata |
| Class |
Amphibia |
| Order |
Anura |
| Family |
Bufonidae |
| Genus |
Incilius |
| Species |
Incilius periglenes |
| Authority |
(Savage, 1967) |
| |
| English
Name |
Golden Toad, Alajuela Toad, Monte Verde
Toad, Orange Toad |
| Danish
Name |
Gylden tudse |
| Dutch
Name |
Gouden Pad |
| Finnish
Name |
Kultakonna |
| French
Name |
Crapaud Doré |
| German
Name |
Goldkröte |
| Italian
Name |
Rospo D'Oro |
| Spanish Name |
Sapo Dorado de Monteverde |
| Swedish
Name |
Gyllene padda |
| |
| Synonyms |
Bufo
periglenes Savage, 1967; Cranopsis periglenes (Savage, 1967); Ollotis
periglenes (Savage, 1967) |
| |
| Characteristics |
This
toad displays extreme sexual dimorphism. The males are a brilliant orange
colour, uniform on the back but sometimes slightly mottled on the belly.
Female dorsal colour ranges from greenish-yellow to black and is marked
with yellow-edged red blotches., while the ventral surface is
greenish-yellow to flesh coloured. In juveniles, however, the sexes cannot
be determined as they are very similar. Females also tend to be slightly
larger than males. The length of an adult female ranges from 42 to 56 mm,
while the length of males range from 39 to 48 mm. Males have a longer,
more acute snout, and proportionally longer limbs. Both sexes have a
relatively smooth body surface, with the warts being granular and tipped
with small black spines. They have no vocal sac or slits. Only the toes of
their hind feet are webbed near their base. (Schoville 1999; Jacobson
1991) |
| |
| Characteristics |
This toad
displays extreme sexual dimorphism. The males are a brilliant orange
colour, uniform on the back but sometimes slightly mottled on the belly.
Female dorsal colour ranges from greenish-yellow to black and is marked
with yellow-edged red blotches., while the ventral surface is
greenish-yellow to flesh coloured. In juveniles, however, the sexes cannot
be determined as they are very similar. Females also tend to be slightly
larger than males. The length of an adult female ranges from 42 to 56 mm,
while the length of males range from 39 to 48 mm. Males have a longer,
more acute snout, and proportionally longer limbs. Both sexes have a
relatively smooth body surface, with the warts being granular and tipped
with small black spines. They have no vocal sac or slits. Only the toes of
their hind feet are webbed near their base. (Schoville 1999; Jacobson
1991) |
| |
| Characteristics |
This toad
displays extreme sexual dimorphism. The males are a brilliant orange
colour, uniform on the back but sometimes slightly mottled on the belly.
Female dorsal colour ranges from greenish-yellow to black and is marked
with yellow-edged red blotches., while the ventral surface is
greenish-yellow to flesh coloured. In juveniles, however, the sexes cannot
be determined as they are very similar. Females also tend to be slightly
larger than males. The length of an adult female ranges from 42 to 56 mm,
while the length of males range from 39 to 48 mm. Males have a longer,
more acute snout, and proportionally longer limbs. Both sexes have a
relatively smooth body surface, with the warts being granular and tipped
with small black spines. They have no vocal sac or slits. Only the toes of
their hind feet are webbed near their base. (Schoville 1999; Jacobson
1991) |
| |
| Lifestyle |
Because
the golden toad had a very secretive life we don't have much information
on its behaviour, except for their breeding behaviour. The also extinct Holdridge's
toad,
Incilius holdridgei, was distributed in the same area and
shared behavioural and ecological
characteristics. It is reported that the Holdridge's toad lived
underground during different seasons. It is possible that the golden toad
did the same. (Jacobson, 1991). |
| |
| Range
& Habitat |
 The
golden toad once occupied a small area of 4 km2 of elfin cloud forest on
the Cordillera de Tilaran in northern Costa Rica at elevations of
1,500-1,620m. This area is now
known as the Monteverde Cloud Forest Preserve (Pounds 1996; DeGroot 2000; Pounds & Savage
2004).
Image:
right hand map with Costa Rica marked red and the location of the Golden
Toad's distribution range marked with a red circle. This
image has been released under
the Creative
Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 Licence.
|
| |
| Food |
This
species has been primarily observed during the breeding season and lived a
very secretive life. Therefore, we have little information on the golden
toad's food habits. Judging by size, many would agree that they feed on
smaller invertebrates (Jacobson 1991; DeGroot 2000). |
| |
| Reproduction |
The
golden toad bred at the
beginning of the rainy season during the months April through June. The
toads gather in large numbers around small, temporary pools and other
water-filled depressions that are located within the forest. The
orange-coloured males generally outnumber the females by an 8:1 ratio,
resulting in a quite fierce competition between males. The males will mate
with almost any moving object, molest other pairs that were in amplexus,
and can form "toad balls" in which 4-10 males would clasp each
other. They produce about 200 to 400 eggs, which are each 3 mm in
diameter. The larval forms remain in the pool and take up to 5 weeks to
metamorphose. (Jacobson 1991; Harding 1993; Pounds & Savage
2004) |
| |
| History
& Population |
None
have been seen since 1989. It last bred in normal numbers in 1987, and its
breeding sites were well known. In 1987, due
to erratic weather, the pools dried up before the larva had matured. Out
of potential 30,000 toads, only 29 had survived.
In 1988, only eight males and two females
could be located. In 1989, a single male was found, this was the last
record of the species. Extensive searches since this time have failed to
produce any more records of the golden toad. (DeGroot 2000; Pounds & Savage 2004) |
| |
| Extinction
Causes |
The
restricted range of the golden toad and having a "narrow window of
time" in order to breed, made this species vulnerable. Global warming
or the El Niño-Southern Oscillation may have caused the erratic
weather that destroyed the reproductive efforts of the golden toad. The
well-known Australian biologist Dr Tim Flannery describes the extinction
of the Golden Toad as Costa Rica's first extinction due to global warming
(Flannery 2005), while Neville comes to the conclusion that Crump's El Niño
hypothesis (Crump et al., 1992) is "clearly supported" by the
available data (Neville 2003). Some also say that deforestation around the
Monteverde Cloud Forest
Preserve may have killed many of the adults when the left the reproductive
area. Chytridiomycosis (a
fatal infectious disease that affects amphibians, caused by the chytrid
fungus, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis) and airborne pollution
probably contributed to this species' extinction.
(DeGroot 2000; Pounds & Savage
2004) |
| |
| Conservation
Attempts |
Its
entire range was protected by the privately owned Monteverde Cloud Forest
Preserve (Pounds & Savage 2004). Some
say that the golden toads are simply hiding out until the conditions are
right to reproduce again. Their
reproductive area is still protected for the possibility that they might
be rediscovered (Harding, 1993). |
| |
| Museum
Specimens |
Do
you know any museum specimens? Please contact
us. |
| |
| Relatives |
Holdridge's
toad - Incilius holdridgei Taylor, 1952
Pico
Blanco Toad - Incilius fastidiosus (Cope, 1875)
|
| |
| Links |
ARKive
- Species - Golden Toad - Bufo periglenes. (information, pictures,
movies)
Golden Toad -
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
|
| |
| References |
Crump,
M. L., F. R. Hensley, and K. L. Clark. 1992. Apparent decline of the
golden toad: Underground or extinct? Copeia 1992:413-420.
DeGroot, J. 2000. "Bufo
periglenes" (On-line), Animal Diversity Web. Accessed August 13, 2006
at http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Bufo_periglenes.html.
Flannery, T. 2005. The Weather Makers. Toronto, Ontario: HarperCollins. ISBN 978000200751, 114-119.
Harding, K. 1993. Conservation and
the Case of the Golden Toad. British Herpetological Bulletin, 44: 31-34.
Jacobson, S. 1991. Reproductive
Ecology of the Endangered Golden Toad (Bufo periglenes). Journal of
Herpetology, 25: 321-326.
Neville, J.J. 2003. "The
Case of the Golden Toad:Weather Patterns Lead to Decline". North
Ohio Association of Herpetologists online. URL accessed 13 August 2006.
Pounds, A. 1996. Conservation of
the Golden Toad: A Brief History. British Herpetological Bulletin, 55:
5-7.
Pounds, A. & Savage, J. 2004. Bufo
periglenes. In: IUCN 2006. 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened
Species. <www.iucnredlist.org>.
Downloaded on 12 August 2006.
Schoville,
S. 1999. Edited by Vredenburg in 2001. Bufo periglenes. In: AmphibiaWeb:
Information on amphibian biology and conservation. [web application].
2006. Berkeley, California: AmphibiaWeb. Available: http://amphibiaweb.org/.
(Accessed: Aug 12, 2006).
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|
Last
updated: 4th December 2008.
This
page is a part of The
Extinction Website.
© 2000-2009. |