18 



BULLETIN 160, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Family PELOBATIDAE Lataste 



1865. Scaphiopodidae Cope, Nat. Hist. Rev., London, p. 107, Jan. 



1879. Pelobatidae Lataste, Compte Rendu Assoc. Frang. Avanc. Sci., for 1878, 



pp. 761, 762. — BouLENGER, 1882, Catalogue of the Batrachia Salientia s. 



Ecaudata in the collection of the British Museum, 2d edit., p. 432. 



Sac. 



Figure 1. — Diagrams illustrating structural conditions found in the sacral vertebra and coccyx of 

 Mexican tailless amphibians: a, Rana. ptpi«ns (U.S.N.M. No. 541); sacral vertebra {Sac^ free and 

 biconvex with double condyle for the coccyx (Coc); 6, Scaphiopus ftawimondii (U.S.N.M. No. 

 60359); sacral vertebra procoelous, that is, with an anterior concave articular surface for corre- 

 sponding presacral vertebra, and ankylosed posteriorly with coccyx; c, Hyla baudinii (U.S.N.M. 

 No. 16563); sacral vertebra free, procoelous, and with double condyle for coccyx 



The genera comprising tlie true spade-foot series of toads have a 

 nearly continuous distribution over most of the Palaearctic region, 

 and a second series — Megalophrys and 

 Aelurophryne — have a restricted range in 

 southern Asia and the neighboring islands. 

 Doctor Noble ^ has recently studied Sooglos- 

 sus and Nesomantis, which are indigenous 

 to the Seychelles Islands in the Indian 

 Ocean, and concludes that his dissections 

 show that this family did penetrate into 

 the Southern Hemisphere. This is generally 

 considered to be one of the primitive families of living Salientia 



Figure 2.— Terminal phalanges of 

 the toe in the foot of Hyla, i indi- 

 cating the position of the inter- 

 calary phalanx 



Genus SCAPHIOPUS Holbrook 



1836. Scaphiopus Holbrook, North American herpetology, Philadelphia, ed. 1, 

 vol. 1, p. 85. [Genotype, Scaphiopus solitarius Holbrook, idem, vol. 1, 

 p. 85, pi. 12 (Carolina, Georgia, and Tennessee) = fiano holbrookii Harlan, 

 1835, Medical and physical researches, p. 105 (South Carolina).] 



' Noble, G. K., An analysis of the remarkable cases of distribution among the Amphibia, with descrip- 

 tions if new genera, Amer. Mus. Nov., no. 212, pp. 8-12, 1926. 



