Bufo bufo - Common Toad

Taxonomy

Phylum: Chordata

Class: Amphibia

Order: Anura

Family: Bufonidae

These drowsy-looking amphibians are often seen in shady waterside places during the mating season in April and May. For the rest of the year they tend to move away from the waterside and are far more comfortable in dry surroundings than frogs are. Adult male toads grow to a length of 8cm, whereas a large female can be up to 13cm long. A large female toad can weigh as much as 80gm.

Most Common Toads are brown or olive-brown, but you may occasionally see a brick-red young toad; it will become much browner as it matures.

Age range

Toads are slow-moving creatures and potentially long-lived (up to 40 years, and occasionally longer in captivity, outliving their keepers in many instances). Their wrinkled, warty skin is no indication of age, however, and even a one-year-old toad has the appearance of a miniature 'senior citizen' and behaves like one. Whereas frogs can hop away quickly when danger threatens, the tired-looking toad merely ambles on as though wearing lead boots.

In between forays for food, toads return to their hideaways, usually shallow excavated burrows but sometimes natural 'caves' beneath fallen timber. When on their annual migration to spawning ponds, lots of toads (as well as frogs and newts) get squashed while crossing roads and lanes. 'Toad Crossing' signs are erected on some roads that cross major amphibian migration routes, and they do alert caring motorists (but sadly not the amphibians) to the risks.

Prey

Toads are not fussy feeders, and they will eat almost any small creature that they can catch. Toadlets feed on ants and other tiny insects. Adult toads can manage larger meals, and their diet includes insects, spiders, slugs and worms. Being slow moving, toads generally hunt at night and rely on stealth to get close enough to their prey. A toad's tongue is sticky, and once 'flicked and licked' the hapless victim has little chance of escaping.

Predators

Common toads secrete the foul-tasting irritant chemical bufagin from their warty skin, and this toxin deters most predators from eating them. They are also able to puff themselves up, and smaller potential predators then see them as either something fearsome or at least too much of a mouthful. Size is no deterrent to larger predatory animals, of course, and some of these are immune to the effects of bufagin. Grass snakes and hedgehogs in particular are able to cope with these chemicals, and they will eat toads when they get the chance.

Mating and spawning

The pair of toads shown here were photographed while on their journey to a pond in the spring. The smaller, darker toad is the male. Unlike frogs, whose spawn appears in large masses, toads leave long ribbons of spawn in shallow water.

Female toads instinctively try to return to the lake or pond in which they were born. Their tadpoles are very similar to those of frogs but they have rounder, darker heads and shorter tails. The tadpoles become toadlets over a period of about four months, losing the tail as they develop first their forelegs and then their hindlegs. Toadlets emerge from the water after heavy rain in late summer rather, much later in the year than froglets do.

The ribbon-like spawn of a toad is easily distinguished from the 'tapioca pudding' form of frog spawn; however, it's not so easy to tell whether a ribbon came from a Common Toad or its slightly smaller relative the Natterjack Toad. If you look closely you will see that a Common Toad lays spawn in a double row, whereas the Natterjack's spawn is a single file ribbon.

By far the easiest way to tell Natterjack spawn from Common Toad spawn is to wait and see what kind of toadlets develop. (Natterjack Toads are most unlikely to appear in your garden pond unless you live right beside the sea.)

If like us you live a mile or more inland, any toad spawn in your garden pond is almost certainly destined in due course to produce Common Toads.

Why don't we see toads more often?

Although the Common Toad is thought to be in decline in Britain and many other countries, there are still plenty of them about. Unlike frogs, they tend to go unnoticed, and there are some good reasons for this:

Their colours are dull and blend in well against a background of soil and dead wood
Their skins are usually dry and so do not tend to glint in the sunlight
They keep still most of the time, and it is movement more than anything that betrays life.

Finally, if you live in Ireland, Iceland or on one of the Mediterranean islands, it's not worth looking for a Common Toad because they do not occur in these countries; elsewhere in Europe, including Britain, this is one of the amphibians that you are most likely to come across almost anywhere in the countryside or even in your own garden.