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Hurter's spadefoot toad or Hurter's spadefoot (''Scaphiopus hurteri'') is a
species In biology, a species is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of ...
of
American spadefoot toad The Scaphiopodidae are a family of American spadefoot toads, which are native to North America. The family is small, comprising only seven different species. The American spadefoot toads are of typical shape to most fossorial (or burrowing) fro ...
(family Scaphiopodidae) found in the south central
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...
(
Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...
,
Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a U.S. state, state in the Deep South and South Central United States, South Central regions of the United States. It is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 20th-smal ...
,
Arkansas Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the ...
, Oklahoma); its range might extend to the adjacent northern
Mexico Mexico ( Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guate ...
. It was once classified as a subspecies of the eastern spadefoot toad ('' Scaphiopus holbrookii''), but it has been granted its own species status. The specific name ''hurterii'' is in honor of the Swiss-American naturalist and curator of the
St. Louis Academy of Sciences ST, St, or St. may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Stanza, in poetry * Suicidal Tendencies, an American heavy metal/hardcore punk band * Star Trek, a science-fiction media franchise * Summa Theologica, a compendium of Catholic philosophy ...
, Julius Hurter.


Habitat

The species occurs in areas of sandy, gravelly, or soft, light soils in wooded or unwooded terrain and in sandy open woodland and
savanna A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland-grassland (i.e. grassy woodland) ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach the ground to ...
as well as in
mesquite Mesquite is a common name for several plants in the genus '' Prosopis'', which contains over 40 species of small leguminous trees. They are native to dry areas in the Americas. They have extremely long roots to seek water from very far under g ...
scrub. During periods inactivity it burrows underground. Breeding takes place in temporary pools formed by heavy rains.


References

Scaphiopus Amphibians described in 1910 Amphibians of the United States Endemic fauna of the United States Fauna of the Southwestern United States Fauna of the Southeastern United States Fauna of the Plains-Midwest (United States) {{Mesobatrachia-stub