Rhinella margaritifera (Laurenti 1768)

Barrio-Amorós, César L., Rojas-Runjaic, Fernando J. M. & Señaris, J. Celsa, 2019, Catalogue of the amphibians of Venezuela: Illustrated and annotated species list, distribution, and conservation, Amphibian & Reptile Conservation (e 180) 13 (1), pp. 1-198 : 17

Rhinella margaritifera (Laurenti 1768)

Neotype: MNRJ 71538, assigned by Lavilla et al. (2013).

Type locality: “Brasilia.” The neotype is from Municipality Humaitá, Amazonas State, Brazil ( Lavilla et al. 2013).

Distribution: Regions 4, 5. Widespread in the Amazonian Region. In Venezuela this species is present in rainforests and cloud forests of the Cordillera de la Costa, the Andes, and south of the Orinoco. It is absent from the Llanos Region.

Remarks: Rhinella margaritifera represents a species complex likely including several undescribed and/or misidentified taxa. At least two distinct taxa are present on the eastern versant of the Cordillera de Mérida. One from Falcon State was removed from this complex and redescribed as Rhinella sclerocephala by Mijares-Urrútia and Arends (2001; see account). Rivero (1964) considered specimens from Guatopo and Falcon as Bufo typhonius alatus . La Marca (1997) followed Rivero’s example, but the decision to use alatus as the name for populations in the complex north of the Orinoco River was premature and speculative. Santos et al. (2015) restricted the distribution of R. alata to Panama, Western Colombia, and Ecuador. La Marca (1992, 1997) included R. acutirostris in the amphibian fauna of Venezuela, but no populations of this species have been documented based on voucher specimens. In Venezuela south of the Orinoco River, at least four distinct populations of the Rhinella margaritifera species complex occur, one in western Amazonas State (CBA, unpub. data), one in the Sarisariñama foothills ( Barrio-Amorós and Brewer-Carías 2008), one in El Paují, southern Gran Sabana, where females lack prominent crests, and one along the northern versant of the Serranía de Lema ( Barrio-Amorós et al. 2011b). Pending formal identification, this last population could correspond to Rhinella martyi (Fouquet et al. 2007) , a taxon so far not reported from Venezuela.

Selected references: Spix (1824); Ginés (1959); Rivero (1961, 1964a,b,d, 1967a, 1971a); Yústiz (1976a, 1996); Hoogmoed (1977, 1986, 1989, 1990); Péfaur and Díaz De Pascual (1982, 1987); Hoogmoed and Gruber (1983); Rivero et al. (1986); Hass et al. (1995); Velez (1995); Gorzula and Señaris (1998); Rivas and Barrio-Amorós (2005); Barrio-Amorós and Brewer-Carías (2008); Barrio-Amorós (2010a); Barrio-Amorós et al. (2011b); Señaris et al. (2014); Santos et al. (2015).