THE CENTER FOR NORTH AMERICAN HERPETOLOGY

Amphibia    Anura    Bufonidae  

Great Plains Toad
Anaxyrus cognatus (Say in James, 1822)

Current SSAR Comments:
There are no current SSAR comments for this taxon.

Range maps are based on curated specimens and provided gratis by CNAH.
(Created by Travis W. Taggart; Version: 2023.07.18.15.16.46)
Download GeoJSON polygon range file: - 12.8 MB

Province/State Distribution:
Canada: Alberta Manitoba Saskatchewan
USA: Arizona California Colorado Iowa Kansas Minnesota Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Mexico North Dakota Oklahoma South Dakota Texas Utah Wyoming

First instance(s) of published English names:
Brickcoloured Toad (Bufo cognatus: Gray, John E. 1830. A synopsis of the species of the class reptilia. Pages 1-110 in The Animal Kingdom Arranged in Conformity with its Organization by the Baron Cuvier, member of teh Institute of France, with Additional Descriptions of all the Species Hitherto Named, and of many not before noticed. Ninth Volume. Whittaker, Treacher, and Company, London, England. pp.); Texas Toad (Bufo lentiginosus cognatus: Yarrow, Henry C. 1882. Check list of North American Reptilia and Batrachia with catalogue of specimens in U. S. National Museum. Bulletin of the United States National Museum (24):1-249); Say's Toad (: Strecker, John K., Jr. 1915. Reptiles and amphibians of Texas. Baylor University Bulletin 18(4):29952); Plains Toad (: Strecker, John K., Jr. 1915. Reptiles and amphibians of Texas. Baylor University Bulletin 18(4):29952); Great Plains Toad (: Storer, Tracy I. 1925. A synopsis of the amphibia of California. University of California Publications in Zoology (27):1-342); Western Plains Toad (: Wright, Anna Allen, and Alex Hazen Wright. 1933. Handbook of frogs and toads. The frogs and toads of the United States and Canada Comstock Publishing Associates, Ithaca, NY. xi+231pp.); Say's Toad (Bufo cognatus: Wright, Anna Allen, and Alex Hazen Wright. 1933. Handbook of frogs and toads. The frogs and toads of the United States and Canada Comstock Publishing Associates, Ithaca, NY. xi+231pp.); Plains Toad (Bufo cognatus: Wright, Anna Allen, and Alex Hazen Wright. 1933. Handbook of frogs and toads. The frogs and toads of the United States and Canada Comstock Publishing Associates, Ithaca, NY. xi+231pp.); Western Plains Toad (Bufo cognatus: Wright, Anna Allen, and Alex Hazen Wright. 1933. Handbook of frogs and toads. The frogs and toads of the United States and Canada Comstock Publishing Associates, Ithaca, NY. xi+231pp.); Western Toad (Bufo cognatus: Wright, Anna Allen, and Alex Hazen Wright. 1933. Handbook of frogs and toads. The frogs and toads of the United States and Canada Comstock Publishing Associates, Ithaca, NY. xi+231pp.); Great Plains Toad (Bufo cognatus: Wright, Anna Allen, and Alex Hazen Wright. 1933. Handbook of frogs and toads. The frogs and toads of the United States and Canada Comstock Publishing Associates, Ithaca, NY. xi+231pp.); Texas Toad (Bufo cognatus: Wright, Anna Allen, and Alex Hazen Wright. 1933. Handbook of frogs and toads. The frogs and toads of the United States and Canada Comstock Publishing Associates, Ithaca, NY. xi+231pp.); Great Plains Toad (Anaxyrus cognatus: Frost, Darrel R., Roy W. McDiarmid, Joseph R. Mendelson III, and David M. Green. 2012. Anura - Frogs. Pages 11-22 in Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles, Herpetological Circular No. 39. pp.);

Taxon Links:

  
Catalog of American Amphibians and Reptiles
  
Amphibian Species of the World
  
NatureServe
  
iNaturalist
  
GenBank
  
USGS - Nonindigenous Aquatic Species Database

Selected References:
1822 James, Edwin. Account of an expedition from Pittsburgh to the Rocky Mountains, performed in the years 1819 and ‘20, by order of the Hon. J. C. Calhoun, Sec’y of War: under the command of Major Stephen H. Long. From the notes of Major Long, Mr. T. Say, and other gentlemen of the exploring party. Compiled by Edwin James, botanist and geologist for the expedition. In two vols. – with an atlas. [Volume 2]. Henry Charles Carey and Isaac Lea, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 442, with supplementary chapters and an appendix.pp.
1946 Smith, Hobart M. The tadpoles of Bufo cognatus Say. University of Kansas Publications Museum of Natural History 1(3):93-96
1954 Lowe, Charles H., Jr. Isolating mechanisms in sympatric populations of southwestern anurans. Texas Journal of Science 6(3):265-270
1968 Cole, Charles J., Charles H. Lowe, and John W. Wright. Karyotypes of eight species of toads (genus Bufo) in North America. Copeia 1968(1):96-100
1971 Brown, Lauren E. and Michael A. Ewert. A natural hybrid between the toads Bufo hemiophrys and Bufo cognatus in Minnesota. Journal of Herpetology 5(1-2):78-82
1973 Martin, R. F. Osteology of North American Bufo: The americanus, cognatus, and boreas species groups. Herpetologica 29(4):375-387
1990 Krupa, James J. Bufo cognatus. Catalogue of American Amphibians and Reptiles (457):1-8
1990 Sullivan, Brian K. Natural hybrid between the Great Plains Toad (Bufo cognatus) and the Red-spotted Toad (Bufo punctatus) from central Arizona. Great Basin Naturalist 50(4):371-372
1996 Dundee, Harold A. Some reallocations of type localities of reptiles and amphibians described from the Major Stephen H. Long Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, with comments on some of the statements made in the account written by Edwin James.  Tulane Studies in Zoology and Botany 30():75–89
1999 Gergus, Erik W. A., Keith B. Malmos, and Brian K. Sullivan. Natural hybridization among distantly related toads (Bufo alvarius, Bufo cognatus, Bufo woodhousii) in central Arizona . Copeia 1999(2):281-286
2004 Pauly, Gregory B., David M. Hillis, and David C. Cannatella. The history of a Nearctic colonization: Molecular phylogenetics and biogeography of the Nearctic toads (Bufo). Evolution 58():2517-2535
2005 Lannoo, Michael (Editor) Amphibian Declines: The Conservation Status of United States Species. University fo California Press, Berkeley. 1115pp.
2005 Enderson, Erik F. and Robert L. Bezy. Amphibians of the Vekol Valley. Sonoran Herpetologist 18(7):74-79
2008 Pauly, Gregory B. Phylogenetic systematics, historical biogeography, and the evolution of vocalizations in Nearctic toads (Bufo). Dissertation. University of Texas, Austin. 165pp.
2010 Lahti, Megan E. The status of dwarfed populations of Short-horned Lizard (Phrynosoma hernandesi) and Great Plains Toads (Anaxyrus cognatus) in the San Luis Valley, Colorado. Dissertation. Utah State University, Logan, Utah. 178pp.
2010 Woodman, Neal. History and dating of the publication of the Philadelphia (1822) and London (1823) editions of Edwin James' Account of an expedition from Pittsburgh to the Rocky Mountains. Archives of Natural History 37(1):28-38
2013 Dodd, C. Kenneth. Frogs of the United States and Canada. John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, Maryland. 982pp.
2016 Peralta-Garcia, Anny, Dean H. Leavitt, Bradford D. Hollingsworth, and Tod W. Reeder. The phylogenetic position of the Little Mexican Toad, Anaxyrus kelloggi, using molecular data. Journal of Herpetology 50(3):471-475
2017 Bezy, Robert L., Philip C. Rosen, Thomas R. Van Devender, and Erik F. Enderson. Southern distributional limits of the Sonoran Desert herpetofauna along the mainland coast of northwestern Mexico Mesoamerican Herpetology 4(1):138-167
2023 Dodd, C. Kenneth. Frogs of the United States and Canada. Second Edition. John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, Maryland. 1032pp.

THE CENTER FOR NORTH AMERICAN HERPETOLOGY — Accessed: Monday 24 March 2025 20:20 CT