Amphibians

Green Toad

Bufotes viridis · also called European green toad, variable toad

Least Concern ↓ insectivorecarnivore Temperate grassland Desert Rivers & wetlands

A green toad is a toad that lives where toads are not supposed to: dry steppe, semi-desert, gravel pits, brackish coastal pools, and the middle of cities. It is marbled green and white, it can lose much of its body water and bounce back, and its call is a long silvery trill that most people take for a cricket or a bird.

Overview

The green toad, Bufotes viridis, is a true toad of central and eastern Europe, the Mediterranean, North Africa, and Asia as far as China and Mongolia. It is a night-hunting insectivore of ants, beetles, and woodlice, and it lives in open, warm, sparsely vegetated ground with shallow water to breed in — steppe, dunes, farmland, gravel pits, and towns.

Built for harsh ground

Few amphibians match its tolerance of heat, drought, and salt. It withstands heavy water loss and rehydrates fast, burrows backwards into loose soil to wait out dry spells, breeds in warm temporary pools, and can spawn in brackish water up to about 1% salt — using lagoon edges and salted ditches that other toads cannot.

A complex, not a species

What was called one species is now around 15 closely related green toad species, several with three or four chromosome sets formed by hybridisation — a key model for studying polyploidy in animals. The green-on-cream pattern varies enormously between individuals, and a toad can lighten or darken over hours.

Status

The complex is Least Concern overall and tolerates urban life well, but the trend is decreasing, with edge populations lost in Switzerland, Austria, and parts of Germany as shallow temporary pools and open pioneer habitat disappear to development and drainage. It is legally protected across the EU.

Green Toad: common questions

Why is the green toad so good at surviving dry conditions?

It has a set of adaptations that together let it live where most amphibians cannot. It tolerates losing a large percentage of its body water and rehydrates quickly through a patch of thin skin on the belly and thighs when it finds damp ground. It digs backwards into loose soil and sand using hardened tubercles on its hind feet and can stay buried and inactive for weeks during heat or drought. It is active only at night in the hottest months, and it will breed in shallow, warm, short-lived pools, racing egg and tadpole development to finish before the water dries. It also copes with brackish and even mildly saline water, opening up coastal and disturbed habitats that other toads cannot use.

What does a green toad sound like?

The call is a long, even, high-pitched musical trill, often lasting five to ten seconds, with a slightly rising and falling quality, and it is repeated with short pauses. People frequently mistake it for an insect, especially a mole cricket, or for a bird such as a nightjar or a small owl. It is quite unlike the short croak of a common toad. Males call from the edge of or from within shallow water on warm spring and early summer nights, and a large chorus produces a continuous silvery ringing that carries several hundred metres over open country.

Are there green toads in North America too?

Yes, but they are a different animal. The North American green toads are in the genus Anaxyrus, mainly the green toad Anaxyrus debilis of the arid southwestern United States and Mexico, a small, bright yellow-green toad with fine black markings and a buzzing, insect-like call. It is unrelated to the Eurasian green toad beyond both being true toads in the family Bufonidae, and the shared name simply reflects the colour. This page is about the Eurasian green toad, Bufotes viridis and its close relatives, which is the animal usually meant by green toad in Europe.

Can you keep a green toad as a pet?

Green toads are kept by hobbyists and are relatively hardy, tolerating a dry, warm terrarium with a sand and soil substrate, a shallow water dish, a warm basking area, and a night-time drop in temperature, with a diet of appropriately sized insects. However, they are protected by law across the European Union and in many individual countries, so wild green toads must not be collected, and only captive-bred animals from a legitimate source should be kept. As with all amphibians they absorb chemicals through their skin, so handling should be brief and with clean wet hands, and their mild skin toxins can irritate eyes and mouths.

Sources & further reading

Written by HideShark Editorial Team · reviewed by HideShark Science Desk. Published September 10, 2026. Last updated September 10, 2026.

Quick facts

Scientific name: Bufotes viridis
Diet: Ground-living invertebrates hunted at night, chiefly ants, beetles, woodlice, earwigs, caterpillars, spiders, and earthworms, taken with a flick of the tongue, and the toad will follow lights and gather where insects concentrate around lamps and buildings
Built for dry, harsh places: The green toad is one of the most drought and heat tolerant amphibians in Europe, living well into semi-desert and steppe, able to lose a large fraction of its body water and recover, to burrow into loose soil to wait out dry spells, and to breed in shallow, warm, temporary pools that other toads avoid
It handles salt water: Green toads can breed in brackish coastal pools and tolerate salinities that would kill most frogs and toads, up to around 1 percent salt, which lets them use lagoon margins, salt marsh edges, and even roadside ditches contaminated with de-icing salt
The canary-like trill: A calling male produces a long, high, rippling, musical trill lasting several seconds and repeated, sounding more like a cricket, a mole cricket, or a small bird than a toad, and on a warm night a chorus around a pool carries a long way across open ground
A tangle of species and extra chromosomes: What was long called one species, Bufotes viridis, is now known to be a complex of around 15 closely related green toad species across Europe, North Africa, and Asia, several of which have three or four sets of chromosomes rather than two, formed by hybridisation, making the group a model for studying polyploidy in animals
Colour that varies enormously: The bold pattern of green or olive blotches edged in dark on a pale cream or grey ground varies between individuals and regions, and the toad can also lighten or darken over hours, so two green toads from the same pond can look quite different
A city toad: Green toads live readily in towns and cities across their range, breeding in ornamental ponds, fountains, building-site pools, and flooded cellars, and they are one of the few amphibians that has held on well in heavily built-up parts of central and eastern Europe
Range: From central and eastern Europe, southern Scandinavia, and the Mediterranean islands east through the Balkans, the Caucasus, and Central Asia to western China and Mongolia, and south into North Africa and the Middle East, in steppe, semi-desert, farmland, dunes, river valleys, gravel pits, and towns, generally in open, warm, sparsely vegetated ground with access to shallow standing water for breeding, and up to around 4500 m in the mountains of Central Asia.
Conservation status: Least Concern ↓ ≈ The green toad complex as a whole is assessed as Least Concern because most species remain widespread and the toads tolerate disturbed and urban habitats, but the overall trend is downward, and several populations at the edges of the range have declined or disappeared, including in Switzerland, Austria, and parts of Germany, where the loss of shallow temporary pools, gravel pits, and open pioneer habitat to development, drainage, and vegetation succession has hit the species, and it is legally protected across the European Union in the wild