Puerto Rican Crested Toad

The PRCT adult is a medium-size toad ranging from 64 to 120 millimeters (2.5 to 4.5 inches) in snout-vent length, of singular aspect, owing to the extraordinary development of the bony crest of the cranium and large size of its eyes. The species has beautiful jewel-like eyes due to the iris is color metallic gold to brassy sprinkled with black. The muzzle is short and very much flattened, projecting much beyond the mouth. The upper lip expanded horizontally as a bony crest several millimeters wide and upturned. The loreal region is very deep (figure1) and the eyes may sunk deep in a large squarish socket. The canthus rostralis is concave and very close together. The supraorbital crest originates on the canthus rostralis extending backward in an elevated arch to behind the eye, from which point a similarly high supratympanic crest projects backward, ending in a rounded knob (figure 1). It is angulated posteriorly, joining the almost equally developed supratympanic ridge. The supraorbital crests height is about 7 mm. above the interorbital space and 3mm above the eyelid, and descending steeply to the loreal region. From the supraorbital crest a lower anteorbital ridge and a higher postorbital crest descend toward the edge of the upper jaw, joining there the high supralabial crest, which extends from below the nostril to the juncture with the postorbital crest (Figure1). From the inner side of the supraorbital crest a low parietal spur proceeds obliquely toward the occiput, not as a continuous crest, but broken up into several ridges and knobs. The crown of the head is thus a deep basin, widened above the tympana, and obstructed by a cross-elevation in front (figure 1). The head has a dermo-osseous coating, a distinctive character of the genus Peltophryne (Pregill 1981c). Tympanum is vertically oval, its horizontal diameter scarcely one-half the width of the eye. Parotoid glands are broad, oval, descending obliquely downward behind the ear. In this species, parotoid glands are not of very distinct outline as it are densely covered like the remainder of the upper surfaces of the body and limbs, with numerous large sub-round tubercles or conical warts, each one with blackish ends. The back and sides are covered with numerous conical warts like those on parotoid glands. The species has one blunt spine on the middle of the lower back cover with smaller conical warts. Whole lower surface “abdomen” is flattered studded with small tubercles, with acute points. The upper surface of hands and feet is nearly smooth. Feet rather short, with small tubercles, and only one remarkably weak metatarsal tubercle, the inner. First finger is slightly shorter than second. Toes are less than one-half webbed. It have strong dermal margin with single and conical tubercles under the digital articulations. Toes also show two well-developed metatarsal tubercle and a strong fold on distal half of tarsus, with strong corneous ridge on the inner margin of the tarsus. The heel reaches the middle of the parotoid. The species has a large gland near outer edge of tibia.