Toads on the Road

WOLFs:  Write your best answer to the questions as you are reading.

While grading our flood rutted road I noticed a slight movement in the gravel and stopped the tractor a few inches short of running over a pair of mating toads.  While the rains and flooding disrupted the lives of a lot of our wildlife, it created a pool of water in a tire track that spelled opportunity for this pair.  Amplexus is the name for the mating position of frogs and toads, in which the male clasps the female about the back.  He looks grumpy but I think he is just straining to hold on tight.

The female toad seldom moves during amplexus.  She is pushing out eggs while the male is fertilizing them in the water.  I lifted the pair out of harms way and into the pool behind the tractor.  I couldn't see any eggs in the water.  I took this frontal picture below she seemed to be glaring at me although she may have been thinking "get this guy off my back." 

These are eastern American toads, the most common ones I find.  Their Latin name had been Bufo americanus, but recently they were moved to another genus and renamed Anaxyrus americanus americanus.  (Do not try to say that with a mouth full of food.)

Two years ago I was looking for salamander eggs in this little pond along the side of our road when I saw these little black strings of beads in the water.  I picked them up for a picture and they remained strung together side by side inside a jello-like mucus strand.  I sent the photographs to a herpetologist friend who confirmed that they were toad eggs.

Can you find the toad eggs?  The toads?

Around a week after she lays her eggs, tiny black tadpoles will hatch and skitter about in water.  The female can lay 2,000–20,000 eggs!  So why don't we see more toads? (1)

Because of the bumps on their backs, some people used to believe that handling a toad would give you warts.  So why should we appreciate and protect them? (2)

Bruno's toad, a small American toad

Eastern narrow mouthed toad

There are several species of small toads in Missouri such as the eastern narrow mouthed toad that my friend Bruno above caught in our field.  It is about an inch long and eats mainly ants and termites.  When mating, special glands on the male’s belly secrete a gluelike substance that sticks the mating pair together.  And they have a very cool call you can hear in this article.

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(1)  Eggs, tadpoles, and young toadlets, become food for both aquatic and terrestrial predators ranging from water bugs to fish to grackles to raccoons.*
(2) Toads are predators that help keep populations of insects and other small animals in balance.*

* Go to the MDC Discover Nature Field Guide to hear the distinctive call of the American toad.  If there are any ponds or even collections of water nearby, go out just after dark and see if you can hear toads call.  You can usually hear them from a long way off.

When written in Chinese, the word 'crisis' is composed of two characters. One represents danger and the other represents opportunity.
Read more at https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/opportunity-quotes