The Dixie Valley toad (Anaxyrus williamsi or Bufo williamsi ) is a species of toad in the family Bufonidae. It is endemic to Churchill County in the state of Nevada in the United States. It was the first new toad species to be described from the United States since the description of the now-extinct in the wild Wyoming toad (A. baxteri ) about 49 years prior.
Oviparous animals are female animals that lay their eggs, with little or no other embryonic development within the mother. This is the reproductive...
Jumping (saltation) can be distinguished from running, galloping, and other gaits where the entire body is temporarily airborne by the relatively l...
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starts withIt can be physically distinguished from the western toad by the scattered gold-colored flecks that cover its olive body, and is also the smallest member of the A. boreas species complex in the region.
The Dixie Valley toad is only found in a small complex of vegetated spring-fed marshlands in Dixie Valley, one of the hottest and geothermally active systems in the region. The surrounding areas are largely arid land with little aquatic resources, isolating A. williamsi from the rest of the world.
While it is considered locally abundant within its extremely small range, environmentalist groups believe that it may be threatened by plans to build a geothermal power plant, alleging that operations may degrade the marshland that it lives in.
As part of environmental review performed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) prior to permitting approval, required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), an Aquatic Resources Monitoring and Mitigation Plan (ARMMP) was required to be developed before the project could begin construction. The purpose of the monitoring and mitigation plan is to ensure that significant adverse effects on aquatic resources (water resources, riparian and wetland vegetation, and aquatic special status species) do not occur. The ARMMP was developed in close coordination between the developer and the BLM prior to the BLM's finding of no significant impact in 2021.
