Amphibians
Toad
Bufonidae · also called true toad
A toad is a frog that has given up on water. Where a typical frog is smooth, leggy, and never far from a pond, a toad is dry-skinned, warty, short-legged, and walks across the lawn at night hunting slugs, returning to water only for a few weeks each spring to breed.
Overview
The word toad usually means a member of the true toad family, Bufonidae, more than 600 species found on every continent except Antarctica and Australia. A toad has dry, thick, warty skin that holds water better than a frog’s, a squat body, short legs for walking and small hops, and a pair of poison glands behind the eyes. It eats ants, beetles, slugs, worms, and other invertebrates caught with a sticky tongue.
Frog or toad
There is no strict scientific boundary, since toads sit within the frogs. In everyday use, dry warty skin, a stout walking body, poison glands behind the eyes, and a mostly land-based life mark an animal as a toad, while smooth moist skin, long jumping legs, and a life in or beside water mark a frog.
The spring journey
Toads are strongly loyal to one breeding pond, usually where they hatched, and each spring the adults migrate back to it on the first mild wet nights, sometimes crossing roads in such numbers that volunteer toad patrols carry them across.
Status
Toads as a family are Not Evaluated. Many are common and adaptable, but some are threatened, the common toad has declined across parts of Europe with pond loss and road deaths, and the introduced cane toad has become one of the worst invasive animals in Australia.
Toad: common questions
What is the difference between a frog and a toad?
There is no formal difference, because toads are simply one branch of the frog family tree, and some frogs called toads are not true toads at all. But when people say toad they usually mean an animal with dry, rough, warty skin rather than moist smooth skin, a stout body, short legs used for walking and small hops rather than long jumps, large poison glands behind the eyes, and a life spent mostly on land, returning to water only to breed. A typical frog, by contrast, has smooth moist skin, long powerful jumping legs, often lives in or beside water year-round, and lays its eggs in clumps rather than the long strings a toad produces.
Are toads poisonous?
True toads are mildly poisonous, not venomous, meaning the toxin is a defence that works when something bites or mouths the toad rather than being injected. The main source is the pair of parotoid glands behind the eyes, which release a bitter, milky secretion containing compounds called bufotoxins. In a person, brief handling followed by washing is harmless, though the secretion stings if it gets into the eyes or a cut. In a dog or cat that bites or licks a toad it causes drooling, foaming, and vomiting, and with the larger species, especially the cane toad and the Colorado river toad, it can be serious or fatal, so a pet that has mouthed a big toad should have its mouth rinsed and be watched.
Why do toads cross roads in spring?
They are migrating to breed. Toads are strongly faithful to a particular breeding pond, usually the one where they themselves hatched, and each spring, on the first warm, damp evenings, the adults leave their winter shelters and walk, sometimes over a kilometre, back to that pond. Where a road has been built across a traditional route, hundreds or thousands of toads may try to cross it on the same few nights, and many are killed. In Britain and parts of Europe, volunteer toad patrols work these crossings after dark in spring, lifting toads into buckets and carrying them safely to the water, and some roads have small tunnels built under them for the purpose.
Do toads make good garden animals?
Very good ones. A resident toad is a quiet, long-lived, low-maintenance form of pest control, eating large numbers of slugs, snails, woodlice, ants, and beetle grubs, and it asks for very little in return. To keep toads around, provide damp shelter such as a log pile, a rockery, or an upturned pot with an entrance, avoid slug pellets and other pesticides that poison their prey and them, keep a pond with a shallow, sloping edge for breeding and easy exit, and check long grass before mowing. Toads will use the same shelter and the same pond for years.