Amphibians
Puerto Rican Crested Toad
Peltophryne lemur · also called Puerto Rican crested toad, sapo concho
Puerto Rico’s only native toad disappeared from scientific records for decades and was widely believed extinct, until a small surviving population turned up alive. It now depends heavily on one of the most sustained amphibian captive breeding efforts in the Americas, competing all the while against an introduced rival, the cane toad, that has spread across the very island the crested toad calls home.
Overview
The Puerto Rican crested toad, Peltophryne lemur, is the island’s only native toad, identified by distinctive bony cranial crests. It shelters by day in limestone caves and rock crevices, hunting ants and other invertebrates at night, and breeds explosively in temporary pools after heavy seasonal rain.
Rediscovered, then propped up by captive breeding
Feared extinct for decades before a small population was found alive, the species now faces ongoing pressure from the introduced cane toad, which likely competes for breeding sites and food. A coordinated, decades-long captive breeding and release programme across multiple zoos has become essential to keeping the species going.
Status
Critically Endangered and decreasing — confined to a small number of sites in southern Puerto Rico, its survival now closely tied to sustained conservation intervention.
Puerto Rican Crested Toad: common questions
Why was the Puerto Rican crested toad thought extinct for so long?
The species went unrecorded for several decades during the middle of the 20th century, likely due to a combination of habitat loss, competition and other pressures linked to the introduced cane toad, and its own naturally secretive, rain-triggered breeding pattern that could make it easy to miss during surveys, leading researchers to widely presume it extinct until a small surviving population was eventually rediscovered.
How does the cane toad threaten the Puerto Rican crested toad?
The introduced cane toad, now common and widespread across Puerto Rico, is thought to compete with the native crested toad for similar breeding sites and food resources, and its much larger, more aggressive presence may disadvantage the native species in direct interactions, contributing to the ongoing pressure on the already small and restricted crested toad population alongside habitat loss.
What does the Puerto Rican crested toad's captive breeding programme actually involve?
Multiple zoos and conservation organisations have coordinated over several decades to breed Puerto Rican crested toads in captivity, raising eggs and tadpoles through to toadlets that are then released into protected wild habitat on Puerto Rico, a sustained head-starting effort intended to supplement the small wild population and help offset ongoing pressures from habitat loss and competition with introduced species.
How can you tell a Puerto Rican crested toad apart from an introduced cane toad?
The Puerto Rican crested toad has raised, bony crests on its head that give it its common name, a feature not present in the same form on the introduced cane toad, and the two species also differ in overall size, with the cane toad typically growing considerably larger, along with other more subtle differences in skin texture and colouration that researchers and conservationists use to distinguish the increasingly rare native species from its more common introduced counterpart.