Overview
- A study published Aug. 5, 2026 in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology formally names the new spadefoot toad Spea labreae from specimens held at the La Brea Tar Pits.
- The species was diagnosed from distinctive sacro-urostyle bones compared with about 80 modern and fossil specimens and appears larger than living spadefoot toads.
- Researchers also report the first La Brea record of the Mexican burrowing toad Rhinophrynus, extending that genus’s known Ice Age range roughly 1,500 miles north of its nearest modern populations.
- The fossils cannot be radiocarbon-dated without destroying them, so their age is inferred from deposit context and associated material and is placed in the Late Pleistocene at about 45,000 years before present.
- The find shows how fragile amphibian bones can yield fine-scale paleoenvironmental data, underscores the scientific value of long-ignored museum collections, and suggests more small-vertebrate discoveries may follow.