Complete Guide To The American Toad
Quick Facts About The American Toad
|
Scientific Name |
Anaxyrus americanus |
|
Common Name(s) |
American Toad |
|
Animal Type |
Amphibian |
|
Diet |
Carnivore |
|
Lifespan |
5 – 10 years in the wild (Tyning 1990) |
American Toad Image Gallery
How To Identify American Toads
- American Toads are large amphibians that can grow to 4.4 inches (11 cm) long.
- They have:
- Short bodies.
- Rounded snouts.
- A single vocal sac that is round when inflated while calling.
- Gold eyes with oval pupils.
- Prominent ridges over their eyes (called “cranial crests”).
- Large parotid glands that appear as raised, kidney bean-shaped lumps behind their eyes and are separated from their cranial crests.
- Bumpy, brown to gray-brown skin covered in large dorsal warts.
- Four toes on their fore legs and five, webbed toes on their hind legs.
- Males and females look similar, although male American Toads have darker throats than females (Behler and King 2020).
- American Toads look very similar to two other North Carolina toad species: the Fowler’s Toad (Bufo woodhousei), and the Southern Toad (Bufo terrestris).
- All three species are widespread in North Carolina, with overlapping ranges, although the Southern Toad’s range starts farther south than the other two species.
- Sometimes the three species can be differentiated by the size of their dorsal warts, the height of their cranial crests, and/or whether their parotid glands touch their cranial crests.
- However, identification is difficult because the distinction between the three species are slight, and hybrids occur in nature (Martof et al. 1980).
How To Find American Toads
American Toads are very common in North Carolina. They live in nearly any moist habitat that includes lots of insects, including in home gardens and around homes with grassy lawns.
American Toads are nocturnal, so look for them in the evening or at night around the edges of buildings, and near the bases of trees, shrubs, and lamp posts. They congregate around sources of artificial light, as artificial attracts their insect prey.
I’ve had the best luck finding American Toads just after nightfall around my garbage and recycling bins, especially on cool, humid evenings.
During the day, these amphibians retreat from the heat of the sun by sheltering under logs, flat stones, or other sources of cover.
What American Toads Eat
American Toads eat nearly anything they can fit in their very wide mouths, including:
- Insects like moths, beetles, crickets, leafhoppers, grasshoppers, and ants.
- Spiders
- Other invertebrates like slugs, snails, and earthworms.
American Toads have excellent eyesight and find their food by sight, even at night. They stalk their prey, capture them with a flick of their sticky tongues, and swallow them whole.
What Eats American Toads
American Toads produce poison in their parotid glands and skin warts that deters many would-be predators. But their poison doesn’t make them invulnerable to being eaten.
In a research study examining the post-breeding dispersal of female American Toads from their breeding sites, “predators took 10 of 16 female toads (62.5%) within 18 weeks” (Forester et al. 2006).
Predators of Adult American Toads
- Garter Snakes (Thamnophis sirtalis)
- Eastern Hognose Snakes (Heterodon platirhinos)
- Common Raccoons (Procyon lotor)
- Striped Skunks (Mephitis mephitis)
- Virginian Opossums (Didelphis virginiana)
- Some ducks (Tyning 1990).
- Screech Owls (Otis asio) (Tipton et al. 2012).
Predators of American Toad Tadpoles
- Predaceous diving beetles
- Giant water bugs
- Crayfish
- Dragonfly larvae
- Eastern Newts (Notophthalmus viridescens)
- Sandpipers (Tipton et al. 2012) (birds in family Scolopacidae)
- Fish in the Sunfish genus Lepomis like Bluegill (Lepomis macrochirus) fish (Smith et al. 2016, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-016-2680-3).
American Toad Behavior And Life Cycle
- American Toads mating season starts in March and lasts only for about two weeks (Tyning 1990).
- Males and females congregate in their breeding ponds and males begin sing a long, musical trill known as an “advertising call” to attract the females.
- Male toads have a vocal sac under their chins that inflates when they sing; a fully inflated vocal sac can be larger than the male toad’s head.
- Most males sit upright in the water and compete with each other to produce the loudest, most resonant call, while the females listen closely and approach the most attractive males.
- Other males prefer a more active approach. These males remain silent, swim through the water, and attempt to clasp with any moving object. Males can succeed with this strategy sometimes; other times, they can find themselves clasping their fellow hopeful males instead of females.
- Females lay long strings of eggs of about 6,000 eggs (Martof et al. 1980) and attach them to submerged vegetation.
- The eggs develop and hatch into tadpoles.
- Competition for food and resources is fierce amongst the tadpoles. While they do not actively kill each other, American Toad tadpoles are passive cannibals; live tadpoles will feed on the bodies of their dead siblings (Heinen and Abdella 2005).
Fun Facts About American Toads
- Most of the time, American Toads move around by walking. But when alarmed, they hop short distances.
- American Toads spend the winters in North Carolina buried in burrows they either dig themselves or take over from other animals.
- American Toads produce a thick, milky, white poison that can sicken domestic cats and dogs.
American Toad Classification
|
Phylum |
Chordata |
|
Class |
Amphibia |
|
Order |
Salientia |
|
Family |
Bufonidae (Toads) |
|
Genus |
Anaxyrus (formerly Bufo) |
|
Species |
A. americanus |
Binomial Name |
Anaxyrus americanus (formerly Bufo americanus) |
