Bufo brasiliensis, Laurenti, 1768

Valencia-Zuleta, Alejandro, Caramaschi, Ulisses & Maciel, Natan M., 2018, On the taxonomic status of Bufo brasiliensis Laurenti, 1768, Zootaxa 4392 (3), pp. 598-600 : 598-599

The name Bufo brasiliensis was proposed by Laurenti (1768)

and, for a long time, has been associated with the widely distributed Marine toad - Rhinella marina (Linnaeus, 1758) . However, we found several inconsistences in this taxonomic proposal and disagree with it. We argue that the specimen illustrated does not correspond to any bufonid form (even less the Neotropical genus Rhinella) based on the following argumentation presented below. Laurenti (1768) used Seba’s (1734) illustration in plate 73 ( Fig. 1 ) to establish the name B. brasiliensis .

In Seba’s work (1734: p. 116), Bufo brasiliensis is described in the “ TABULA SEPTUAGESIMA ET TERTIA ” as:

“Num. I. Bufo, Brasiliensis, de Aguaquaquan dictus, orbiculatus.

Bufonum haec species ex Americae proinsulâ Cubâ delata est. Crassi, teretesque sunt, & benè pasti. Cutis, ex ruffo lutea, maculis umbrosis subnigricantibus, & granulatis, seu eminentibus punctis, tanquam granulis, per totum corpus supernum distinguitur. Maculae undequaque à capite ad pedes usque quasi flammas mentiuntur. Curti quae colli guttur ornat pictura, elegans collare refert. Oculi insignes ardent. Antici pedes quatuor gerunt digitos, quorum extreme articuli, uti in Ranis Surinamensibus, latiusculi sunt. Postici. ”

Later, Laurenti (1768: p. 26) briefly indicated in his diagnosis of Bufo brasiliensis the following features:

“ Cinereo-flavescens, maculis rubris flammatis nebulatus, verrucosus, subtus glaber.”

These features presented above are, therefore, concordant with those described by Seba (1734). Subsequently, based on Seba’s (1734) illustration, Shaw (1802: p. 160) provided the following description of Bufo brasiliensis : (i) head wider than long and (ii) rufous or yellowish-brown color pattern, a clearer venter, being all surface body parts with the same and uniform color pattern. Posteriorly, Merrem (1820), by including Bufo brasiliensis in the Bombinator genus (allocated in Bufonidae family to date) denoted the lack of parotoid glands. Thereafter, Suckow (1798: p. 70) synonymized “ Le Crapaud Agua ” of Lacépède (1788) and Bonnaterre (1789: p. 14) with Rana brasiliensis (= Bufo brasiliensis Laurenti ). However, “ Le Crapaud Agua ” is clearly a different form of Bufo agua described by Latreille (1801). For this reason, the synonymy indicated by Daudin (1802, 1803) and Nieden (1923) considering Bufo brasiliensis as a junior synonymy of Bufo agua Latreille or Bufo marinus (L.) is not correct.

Based on the illustration and the previous description, we here argue that: (i) the color pattern, (ii) presence of the extensive foot webbing, (iii) dilated fingers disc-shaped tip, (iv) lack of parotoid glands, cranial crests and tubercles do not agree with any feature previously mentioned for Rhinella marina , which are also expressed to different degrees in all other species of Rhinella. The features listed above support the exclusion of the name Bufo brasiliensis from the synonym list of R. marina and even any bufonid toad.

A further hindrance to resolving this issue is that the two names in the synonymy of Bufo brasiliensis : Rana brasiliana Shaw, 1802 and Bombinator maculatus Merrem, 1820 have no vouchered or referred type material as evidence for verification. There is not any taxonomic information published after the synonymization with Bufo agua referring to Bufo brasiliensis and the subsequent inclusion of the name by Nieden (1923) under Bufo marinus (= Rhinella marina ). This seems to be forgotten as it is buried in a long list of synonyms of a “common” species.

The type of B. brasiliensis is the specimen that served as model for Seba’s (1734) illustration (Plate 73, figure 1 and 2). However, there is no further information about this specimen. After his death, Seba´s second collection was sold in Amsterdam in 1752, and different specimens took different destinations (see Boeseman, 1970). Therefore, it is difficult to determine the location of the Bufo brasiliensis holotype specimen. Currently, at least, it is not present in the St. Petersburg Collection which purchased a large part of Seba’s Collection ( Milto & Barabanov 2011). Hence, we consider the type specimen B. brasiliensis to be probably lost or misidentified during collections exchanges.

The type locality initially indicated by Seba (1734) was “ proinfulâ Cubâ ” ( Cuba Island). Laurenti (1768) provided no information about locality. Gmelin (1789) however, indicated “ Brasilia ” (= Brazil) as a potential origin of this specimen, perhaps because of the meaning of the name ( Shaw, 1802). Both the locality mentioned by Seba (1734) and the one assigned by Gmelin (1789) were restricted to South America by Shaw (1802). However, both localities indicated by Gmelin and Shaw lack of support, adding confusion to the origin of B. brasiliensis . Besides, there also is a probability that Seba’s locality indication might be an error. We consider that it would be the more conservative to maintain Cuba Island as the type locality for Bufo brasiliensis .

Even though we reject the name Bufo brasiliensis as a synonym of Rhinella marina , it is difficult to know exactly which species or at least which genus could correspond to this name. Based on illustrations and descriptions, we determined that B. brasiliensis has: (i) a robust body, with apparent scattered granules on dorsum (indicated by small dots among the color spots illustrated) and a smooth venter; (ii) a small round to semi-round head; (iii) eyes partially dorsally positioned; (iv) robust fore limbs, hands with four round-tipped fingers, without interdigital webbing between fingers; (v) robust hind limbs, foot with five toes sharply pointed, and well-developed interdigital webbing between toes; and (vi) a spotted color pattern, probably gray-reddish background with flaming irregular spots or cream background with brown irregular spots.

We compared the features of Bufo brasiliensis with Cuban anuran species recorded by Díaz & Cadíz (2008) and Rivalta et al. (2014) in order to search for its identity.. Features of Peltophryne species are different from B. brasiliensis as they have cranial crests, parotoid glands, tubercles, partial toe webbing, fingers and toes tips not expanded. The dorsal color pattern of Peltophryne empusa Cope, 1862 , P. florentinoi (Moreno and Rivalta, 2007) , and P. fustiger (Schwartz, 1960) is slightly similar to B. brasiliensis . Bufo brasiliensis is different from Eleutherodactylus species, since the last one lacks toe webbing, and mostly differ in the proportions of head, legs and body. However, among Eleutherodactylus species, B. brasiliensis vaguely resembles E. acnomis Schwartz, 1960 , E. greyi Dunn, 1926 , E. guanahacabibes Estrada and Rodriguez, 1985 , E. planirostris (Cope, 1862) , E. ricordii (Duméril and Bibron, 1841) and E. thomasi Schwartz, 1959 due to the irregular spots pattern found on the dorsum of these species. Osteopilus septentrionalis (Duméril and Bibron, 1841) differs from B. brasiliensis by having webbed fingers, partially webbed toes, and proportion of body and head. Color pattern in O. septentrionalis is variable. Only one color morph with irregular spots dorsally resembles B. brasiliensis . However, the ventral color pattern is different. Bufo brasiliensis thus combines a series of characteristics that makes identification difficult, whereas comparisons with species from outside Cuba would require more information on the probable provenance of the type. For that reason, we recommend keeping this name as nomem dubium until new evidence is found to evaluate its taxonomic status.

Figures

FIGURE 1.Illustration of Bufo brasiliensis from“Thesaurus” (Seba, 1734:plate 73).