Red Spotted Toothed Toad

The male is 68 mm and the female is 67 mm in body length. The pupil is vertical and the tympanum is relatively obvious. The maxillary teeth are developed. The dorsum is dark purplish black or dark purplish brown and full of spiny tubercles. The axillary gland, the femoral gland and the sides of the body have orange-red tubercles. The ventrum is light in color. The hind legs are long and the tips of the fingers and toes are rounded. The toes have a narrow fringe and little webbing. The tibiotarsal articulation extends to the eye. The male has large, thick nuptial spines on the first and second finger. A pair of thick and dense spine clusters are also present on the chest. The eggs are milky white. The tadpole are 104 mm in total body length and 40 mm in head length. The entire body is transparent or purple so that one can see through to the internal organs. The labial tooth formula is mostly I: 1-1, I: 7-7/I: 8-8. The center of the upper lip lacks one to three papillae. The corners of the mouth have many additional papillae that extend to the inside of the lower lip. The papillae also have many small teeth (Fei 1999).

O. rhodostigmatus is known to inhabit the Hubei, Sichuan, Guizhou and Hunan provinces of China. It inhabits springs or stream pools in or near limestone caves in mountainous regions at 1000 to 1790 m above sea level (IUCN 2004).

Adult toads are usually found within a few hundred meters from the cave entrance, where it is completely dark, along the banks of the stream or on top of boulders. Their movements are extremely slow. In Hubei province and Lichuan county, transparent tadpoles can be found about 3000 m from the cave entrance in the deep water of the spring. If they are exposed to light, they will swim slowly into the crevices between the boulders in the deep water (Fei 1999).

The population is small and distributed in under ten locations over its wide range. The major threats to the species are habitat destruction and degradation, especially to the caves as a result of tourism. In addition, tadpoles are used as a food source (IUCN, 2004)[3718].

Tadpoles are used as a food source.