WARNING! This is not a professional website! I am NOT an expert. Do NOT believe everything on this site.

Last Updated: 8/19/07

Toads

• American Toads - Bufo americanus
  
• Common Toads - Bufo woodhousei
  
• Marine Toads - Bufo marinus

Why Did My Fish Die After The Toads Laid Eggs?
Setting up a Toad Nursery
Will My Pond Be Overrun With Toads?
Feeding Toads
Toad Links, Photos, and Calls

For books and more links on toads, go to my main amphibian page.

For a page that helps you identify what laid those eggs in your pond, see my pond egg identification page.

See my helping frogs and toads to overwinter section for a few ideas to help wild toads overwinter.

For information on overwintering toads indoors, see my frog and toad information page.

I do not have a section on the Western toad but someone sent me a photo of one. Here is the Western toad photo that Tracy in Montana sent to me on 10/5/05.

The American toad is the color of dirt with "warts" and generally blends in well with dirt and rocks. They are very common in the Eastern and mid-USA. Males grow to about 2 inches and females to about 4 inches. Bufo americanus loves to visit ponds in the late spring and early summer to lay a trillion eggs. Eggs can be laid from January to July depending on the location. American toads are often the first of the frogs and toads to breed in ponds, along with the spring peepers. Eggs are attached in long strings around plants. Each double string of long spiral jelly eggs contains an average 6000 eggs (someone told me that it is really 2000 but it does not really matter; it is a lot!)!! The large female and active male can stay joined for hours and submerge for long periods of time to avoid predators. During the night, males give off very loud trills (like brrrrrrrrrrrr but very high) to attract females but they tend to clasp together throughout the following day once he succeeds in attracting a mate. The eggs hatch in 4-11 days or so.

Like their parents, the tadpoles are distasteful and perhaps poisonous. Adult toads can inflate their bodies to make them hard to eat as well as produce secretions that taste bad. Fish and other predators avoid eating tadpoles but a few animals will eat toads and tadpoles. Hognose snakes (the Eastern puff adder for one), ducks, raccoons, and skunks may eat toads while predaceous diving beetles, some fish, newts, birds, and larger tadpoles may eat toad tadpoles. There are supposedly cases where fish (goldfish) did eat toad tadpoles and died but I have yet to see such a thing in my ponds.

After about two months (5 to 10 weeks depending on temperature), the toads change to adults and leave. The adults eat insects and slugs (yeah!). One person reports that they eat cat food. I used to think the baby toads hopped away during the night, never to seen again. But in the summer of 1999 (July to be exact), the shallow areas of my 1800 gallon pond were hopping with dozens of tiny baby toads, some still with tails. They hung around for weeks, getting larger before leaving. This may have had to do with the drought and temperatures in the high 90's for weeks. My ponds were the only water for half a mile. When it gets cold, the adult toads partially bury themselves in the ground under something. The drought of 1999 must have killed most of the toads since only half a dozen returned to spawn in the spring of 2000 compared to over 30 the year before. From each batch of eggs, only a few toads will make it to breed in the future.

Stacy described the toad eggs that she found in April 2003 in such a good way that I thought I should put it here to help others identify their eggs too! She asked me to identify what they were after visiting my pond egg identification page. Here is what she had to say:
"...We are now seeing large amounts of eggs in the pond - long strings of hundreds of eggs together. They seem to be suspended in jelly - they are off the bank a little, so I can't identify color of spots. What is interesting is that the eggs are suspended in a coiled helix shape. They all seem to be attached or draped around the plant life, and only in about 1 foot of water...."

The common toad is actually less common than the American toad. Bufo woodhousei grows from 2 to 5 inches in length. It is also called Woodhouse's toad. It mostly eats insects. The common toad breeds from March to July, later than the American toad. Up to 8,000 eggs are laid per female. The tadpoles leave after one or two months, depending on temperature. They are much less vocal than the American toads. The male's call is supposed to be like a sheep's bleat and last one to four seconds. I have seen a solitary common toad every once in a while but have not heard its call as of yet (5/99). The common toad has brown splotches edged in black over a grayish, brown body. In my opinion, they are more colorful and cuter than the American toad. While both the common and American toad have body ridges, only the common toad's ridge touches the parotoid glands. The common toad may prefer more sandy type soils. It occurs further west in the USA than the American toad but does not roam in Canada where the American toad does. Their range overlaps in the Eastern and mid-US.

On 4/10/01, I found a pair of common toads mating in my 153 gallon pond. They are smaller than American toads in my area. Unusually, they were breeding before the American toads who usually show up first but are nowhere to be found. The female common toad had striping on her legs that I have never seen on American toads. The male was a light to medium brown while the American toads are very dark brown. These toads laid fewer eggs than the American toads do. Even more strange is that I never heard the male common toad produce any noise at all. We had the windows open that night too and have heard frogs calling from much farther away. Now that they have produced eggs, I hope to have more common toads in the future! Maybe they are not common toads but some rare species? They really do not look like any photos I have seen! Here is a photo of their week-old tadpoles.

On 8/4/07, my brother found this toad in the road. I think it might be a common toad (mostly because of the size and reddish color) versus the ironically more common American toad. I am not sure of the sex because it has male features but is fat like a female. What do you think about the species and sex of the toad?
Toad - side/top view
Toad - top view

The Marine toad is not native to my state of Maryland or any state in the USA. However, it has been introduced to Florida, Hawaii, and parts of Australia. I am mentioning this species because of some ponders' concerns about toad toxicity. This is the toad to worry about. The Marine toad, Cane toad, or Giant toad is very poisonous. Its Latin name is Bufo marinus. It is huge, growing to 6 inches or more. The Marine toad has high bony ridges. While some people advocate increasing salinity as a deterrent, apparently this does nothing to deter them.

From what people have e-mailed me, marine toads are from Venezuela and have been introduced to Florida, Hawaii, and Australia to control sugar cane beetles. One person says the ones in Florida came from Australia and escaped from the Miami airport. Another person says the ones in Australia came from Hawaii. Apparently their route was thus Venezuela to Hawaii to Australia to Florida. In Australia, they have harmed small animals while potential predators have learned to avoid them. Australian crows are said to eat the non-poisonous underbelly.

The marine toad's call is a trill. Their eggs (up to 30,000 per spawn) and tadpoles look like that of the nearly harmless American and common toads. One person's dog bit a Marine toad, and the poison killed the dog. No biological controls are known since the toads, eggs, and tadpoles are too toxic for anything to eat. Certainly, few fish keepers would want them, their spawn, or their tadpoles in their pond. Anyone who believes that they have Marine toads should be sure not to injure other native species of toads or frogs by accident or misidentification. They seem to be intolerant of cold and so they should not become a problem outside of Florida, Texas, and other warm states or countries.

Here are some good links on cane toads:

Cane toad fact sheet
Cane toads in the garden
The Giant Toad
Frogs and toads of Florida - includes a lot of information on dealing with marine toads

Sometimes after toads lay eggs in a pond, fish die. There are a number of theories as to why this is. The higher the concentration of eggs to pond volume in the pond, the more likely this would happen. While American and common toad eggs are somewhat toxic, most fish know not to eat them. They may taste a few but they taste bad, and the fish gets sick. It rarely dies and learns not to eat the eggs ever again. Occasionally you may get a "stupid" fish who eats the eggs or toad tadpoles (who also are slightly poisonous and taste bad) anyway and dies. Certain other species of toad are more toxic, such as the Marine Toad (see above). If a fish test tastes one of their eggs, it may die straight away. I am not familiar with species other than the American or common toad so I cannot comment on these other species.

The most likely scenario as to why American toad eggs who kill fish is this. Toads are very prolific breeders. A single female with a few suitors can add many thousands of eggs and a high concentration of excess semen to the water. Both of these add wastes to the water just as fish waste would. Of course, while courting in the water, the toads also excrete wastes as well. This all increases the ammonia concentration in the pond. In small ponds, this may be too much load for the biological filter. All the excess organic material in the pond can also drastically reduce the dissolved oxygen content in a small pond. Large ponds (over 1000 gallons) are largely unaffected by a few breeding pairs of toads. Thus, in a small pond following a toad spawning, fish may die from lack of dissolved oxygen and/or ammonia poisoning.

To prevent die off of fish from toad spawn in a small pond, be sure to do the following. Increase surface agitation and aeration of the water to increase the dissolved oxygen content. Remove or relocate excess toad eggs from the water. If possible, do a 20-50% water change in a small pond (under 1000 gallons) following a large toad spawning. Keep the filters especially clean. Adding liquid or dried bacteria meant to improve the nitrogen cycle can also help.

I remove excess toad eggs and tadpoles from some of my ponds and put them in my other ponds. They can also be moved to local natural bodies of water. Toad eggs and tadpoles transplant well. I think it is much better to relocate them than kill them as many suggest. Adult toads are great insect eaters and pose little bother to anyone (except those people who cannot sleep through the males' trills). Toad killers suggest killing by tossing tadpoles on the lawn to dessicate, poisoning with fungal killers (adding chemicals to a pond should not be done haphazardly), or even mowing over the newly formed toads! Please, just move them to another site. All my ponds have toad tadpoles in the spring, and nothing bad has happened (since 1997).

If you want to remove excess toad eggs and toad tadpoles but do not want to kill them, you can set up a toad nursery. All you need is a shallow, fish-safe container. A kiddie pool or plastic storage box works well as does another pond just for amphibians. Fill the toad pool with toadpoles or eggs. Use water from the main pond or water aged outdoors. Toss in some live plants such as anacharis, algae-covered rocks from the main pond, and assorted pond life. Place the toad pool in an area with partial shade so they do not overheat. Put in a ramp of some sort for them to get out. It can be a log or even a pool toy. The addition of mosquito dunks (see the section on mosquitoes) will keep mosquitoes from hatching out of the water. If you set up a toad pond before breeding begins, the toads and frogs will find it on their own. They should prefer it over a pond with fish that may eat their offspring. In areas where ponds freeze, toads will leave the water before fall. If there are frog tadpoles (bullfrogs, green frogs) still in the pond in the fall, they will need to be moved to a body of water that will not freeze solid.

When the toad tadpoles first hatch, they are very tiny, flat, move very little, lay on the bottom, and do not look anything like tadpoles. They can be raised in a small pond (tub pond or kiddie pool which works well). A small air stone can be used to help keep it oxygenated but do not use a pump or filter because it will suck them in (my filter pads get covered in tadpoles). After almost a week, the toad tadpoles will begin to swim around. They will eat algae and fish food. They may or may not eat hair algae but will eat other algae. You can feed fish food to the tadpoles to supplement their diet of algae if there is not enough. I feed tadpoles Cheerios, koi kookies (sold at many pond places including That Pet Place, Drs. Foster and Smith, and AquaMart, go here for contact information); yes, it is spelled kookie and not cookie; by 2007 it seems they do not make them anymore), goldfish flake food, pond floating pellet food, and algae tablets made for plecostomus catfish. Here are some foods you might feed toad (or frog) tadpoles.

When I put in Cheerios, they all hitch on and spin it around like an amusement park ride. When I put in koi kookies, the kookie gets covered in a black mass shortly. Change about a third of the water every week. This may be hard if there are a lot of tadpoles and little water. You can either run the water to be changed through a net to catch the tadpoles, toss the changed water with tadpoles into another pond (I do that since I have so many ponds), or discard some (to reduce their numbers). Sometimes, I just do not change the water since there are too many tadpoles, and they survive. After a few months, the tadpoles grow legs and spend time on wet vegetation when they get legs but still have tails. It is important that they have places to do this. Lotus and lily leaves work great as do very shallow areas of the pond. After they absorb their tail, the tiny (1/3 inch or so) toads leave the pond in search of bugs to eat. They have to have a means to get out of the water as they can only jump about a few inches high at this time. In a few months, they have grown to a little over half an inch. From every spawning of toads of thousands of eggs, only have a few make it to adulthood which is fine because you do not want to be overrun! Many will starve, get eaten by each other or any animals that get to them, die from ammonia, nitrite, and/or organic build up from overcrowding, get mowed or run over, or get squished.

Some ponders are concerned that their yards will become over run with toads but this does not happen. Many eggs fail to hatch due to fungus, poor water quality, or infertility. Of the thousands of toad tadpoles (I call them toadpoles which is scientifically incorrect but cute) that do hatch, many will be eaten by other toadpoles and perhaps some animals that are more tolerant of their distaste. Even the most algae-ridden pond usually cannot feed so many toadpoles so they run out of food. Many starve, and many others eat their siblings. Toadpoles only eat surface algae and debris and will not usually touch suspended algae or string algae. They congregate in the warm shallows when the sun is out. After a few months, they vanish overnight. Their legs grow seemingly overnight, and they leave in the dark. I have yet to see a toad in transition between water and land. Of those toads that make it to land, many are eaten by birds and other predators. Some are squashed by cars. Many freeze to death over winter or starve. So, from say 3000 eggs laid in your pond, maybe if they are lucky, 10 will return to the pond in a few years to breed themselves. Then, there are quite a few wrestling matches. In my pond in 1999, there were about 12 males but only a few females whereas two years before when the pond was new, only a single pair found it. Perhaps most toadpoles are born male, or the females found a better pond than mine!

Toads will only eat live animals. They can eat whatever moves and fits in their mouth. Adults love crickets, mealworms (all three species, see my mealworm page), earthworms, beetles, slugs, and well anything small that moves! Toadlets (tiny newly-morphed toads) will eat pinheads (newborn crickets), wingless fruitflies, and blackworms (semi-aquatic) which can be bought from most aquarium stores. You can also raise mealworms and feed the baby mealworms to toadlets. In the wild, they again eat anything small that moves from beetles to ants to worms to thousands of species of baby or small insect.

For some reason, I got about six questions on feeding baby toads in June of 2004 so I thought I needed to add that to my site but it was already here! I guess no one reads around!

Also, see my section on feeding frogs and toads.

Toad Photos:

Photos are from most recent to oldest.

Michelle sent these three photos of amplexing American toads in her pond in Michigan on 6/8/07. The male is on the top of the female.
Mating American toads
Mating American toads
Mating American toads

On 4/27/07, Daniel sent these photos of male toads calling in his pond. They are great photos of the males with their sacks inflated!! I think they are American toads.
Daniel said, "I took this photo two nights ago - one of two toads (I think this is a toad not a frog) who visited our home-made pond were in the pond chirrruping away at one another - we watched 'em for quite a while with flashlights - they were shameless and didn't care. After croaking at one another they had a little fight, then rested, then did it again - it looks as if each wanted the other one to leave the pond. I was surprised as I didn't know toads (or frogs) would do this. Their "fighting" was not sex (we've seen other shameless frogs and toads over the years) - more like wrestling and bumping and pushing and croaking at one another in skirmishes. I wonder if frog fighting is documented."
I told him that male toads often wrestle as he saw. They want the best spots to attract females.
Male American toad calling
Male American toad calling

I went to the zoo on 6/7/06 and took this photo of a group of American toads. They were in a glass tank so I was surprised the photo turned out.
American toads

On 2/2/05, Samantha sent these photos of her American toad which I finally linked into my site on 2/28/07.
American toad- top view
American toad- top view

Here are two photos of newly-morphed toads from Bill's pool cover that he sent on 5/16/04: toadlets and toadlets.

Male American toad on land, 4/18/04.
Male American toad in my 153 gallon pond, 4/18/04, different male than the above male as they were both out at the same time, and the photos were taken minutes apart. This male was calling.

David sent me many photos of toad eggs and toad tadpoles in March 2004. Here they are: toad eggs, toad eggs, toad eggs, toad tadpoles, toad tadpoles, and a few toad tadpoles close-up.

Toad eggs photo sent to me by Richard and Debi in April of 2003.

One-week-old toad tadpoles in my 153 gallon pond on 4/22/01.

A female American toad sat at the threshold of my garage door on 6/21/00.

In April, hundreds of "toadpoles" swim around eating algae so I think that is good! Here is a photo of two mating toads (left arrow) and the strings of eggs all over the pots (right arrow), taken 5/22/97 when the pond was still new enough that the water was clear (note that it became crystal clear again in 1999!). This is a photo of lots of toad tadpoles swimming around and a green frog on the left (arrow), taken 4/12/98.

Toad Links:

To see a good photo of the American toad and to hear the male's call, go to this ad for a frog CD.

To see a photo of the American toad, hear a call, and get some info, go to this frog site .

To see another photo, hear a call, and get info, go to the Toronto Zoo site.

The Herps of Texas web site has a photo, call, and information on the American toad as well.

There is a photo and call of an American toad at this site too.

You can hear and see American, Fowler's, oak, Southern, and Eastern Narrowmouth Toads at Frogs & Toad of Virginia & Maryland.

The Frogs & Toads of Tennessee page has information, photos, and calls on the American toad, Fowler's toad, Eastern narrowmouth toad, and Eastern spadefoot.

The Frogs & Toads of Georgia has information, photos, and calls on the following toads: Americnan, Fowler's, oak, Southern, Eastern narrowmouth, and Eastern spadefoot.

Photos of Gulf Coast Toads

If you are not sure which species of toad that you have, and you live in the USA, go to enature.com and enter in your zip code and then go to the amphibians guide to see photos, hear calls, and learn information on species native to your area.

Check out this page on Pond Showcase to see the cutest photo of toads on a waterfall in Texas.

This Pond Showcase page has two photos of toad tadpoles in a dirt-bottomed pond.

Return to main amphibian page.

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