american toads

We could hear them, the male toads, as we walked along the water at Mill Pond. Dozens of suitors trilling out their songs.

We watched, we listened and we marveled.

The American Toads are found throughout North America and can live almost anywhere as long as their is some freshwater nearby for the breeding season.

The breeding generally occurs as the days become longer and warmer. The males will congregate in shallow wetlands or ponds and establish territories. Once settled the male will start to call out his trills by ballooning out his throat. The females choose a male based on the beauty of his song and the location he has sought out.

A male toad gets horny pads on the first and second toes on his forelegs, which helps it clasp the larger female's abdomen. This posture is called "Amplexus". As the female releases her eggs the male releases sperm to fertilize them externally.

The female lays her eggs (4000-8000) in the water in long tubes (6 - 20 meters long) of jelly that resembles dusky laces along the pond bottoms.

The eggs hatch into tadpoles in 3 - 12 days, depending on the warmth of the weather. The tadpoles transform into adults in a 40-70 day process.

We carefully collected some of the eggs to put into our little pond and to watch them grow. Some we put into a see through container for better observation.

Tadpoles are herbivores that eat algae. The nocturnal adult toads eat insects, snails beetles, slugs and earthworms catching their prey with their sticky tongues. One American Toad can eat up to 1,000 insects a day! Enough of a reason to appreciate this creature.

(adapted from Animal Diversity Web, U of Michigan)