Mesoamerican Burrowing Toads: Rhinophrynidae

This family has only one living species, which may be called a Mesoamerican burrowing toad, Mexican burrowing toad, or simply, a burrowing toad. It is found in North and Central America. In North America, it lives in the southernmost part of Texas and in Mexico. It also is found in the Central American countries of Honduras, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. At one time, other burrowing toads lived on Earth as far north as Canada. Two now-extinct species lived in what is now Wyoming about 40 to 50 million years ago, and another lived in Saskatchewan, which is in western Canada, about 32 million years ago. Scientists learned about these three species from fossils collected from the two places.