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

Description

The European spadefoot toads are small to large sized frogs, up to 10 centimetres (3.9 in) in length, which are often inconspicuously coloured. They are predominantly fossorial (burrowing) frogs, which burrow in sandy soils. They have a hardened protrusion on their feet to aid in digging, which is the source of the common name. They will emerge from the ground during periods of rain and breed in pools, which are usually temporary.^[1]

All of the species from this family have free-living, aquatic tadpoles. The eggs are laid in temporary ponds that may quickly evaporate, so tadpole stage is unusually brief, with rapid development to the adult form in as little as two weeks. To further speed their growth, some of the tadpoles are cannibalistic, eating their brood-mates to increase their supply of protein.^[1]

Taxonomy

Family Pelobatidae

• Genus Pelobates
  • Western Spadefoot Toad  (Pelobates cultripes)
  • Common Spadefoot  (Pelobates fuscus)
  • Eastern Spadefoot Toad  (Pelobates syriacus)^[2]
  • Moroccan Spadefoot Toad  (Pelobates varaldii)

Notes

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 (2): 228–237. doi:10.1016/j.gene.2005.07.034. PMID 16307849. 
• Roelants, Kim; Franky Bossuyt (February 2005). "Archaeobatrachian paraphyly and pangaean diversification of crown-group frogs". Systematic Biology 54 (1): 111–126. doi:10.1080/10635150590905894. PMID 15805014. 
• San Mauro, Diego; Miguel Vences, Marina Alcobendas, Rafael Zardoya and Axel Meyer (May 2005). "Initial diversification of living amphibians predated the breakup of Pangaea". American Naturalist 165 (5): 590–599. doi:10.1086/429523. PMID 15795855. http://kops.ub.uni-konstanz.de/volltexte/2007/3305/pdf/Initial_Diversification_of_Living_Amphibians_Predated_the_Breakup_of_Pangaea.pdf. Retrieved 10 February 2011.