Scientists have described a new extinct species of spadefoot toad, named Spea labreae, from the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles. What makes this discovery remarkable is that the fossils had actually been collected as early as 1929 but remained unstudied in museum collections for nearly nine decades. Lead author J. Alberto Cruz began reviewing the amphibian material in 2023 and identified distinctive skeletal features that set this toad apart from known species. This is the first extinct Ice Age amphibian identified from Los Angeles and only the second such species from North America’s Pleistocene epoch. The find, published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, also revealed another significant detail: the first record of the Mexican burrowing toad (Rhinophrynus) in the southwestern United States. Combined, these findings provide insights into how amphibian communities in the Los Angeles Basin reorganized as the climate shifted from cooler, wetter conditions to the semi-arid environment of today.
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