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Thread: some general questions about american toads in the wild

  1. #1
    hopalong
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    Default some general questions about american toads in the wild

    my wife and i live in a heavily wooded area in new york state. we have a small pond about a hundred yards from our house.

    about a month ago we noticed that a toad had taken up residence under the steps outside our kitchen door.

    the little guy is as regular as clockwork: during the day, he's tucked into his apartment. at sundown, he comes out and takes up his post outside the sliding door leading to the patio.

    so far we haven't seen him feeding, although last night we offered him a few pill-bugs and a couple of earth-worms.

    on one occasion he had an overnight guest - a smaller toad was sharing his apartment with him.

    so, a couple of questions:

    - are toads usually this predictable? is this unusual, or have others observed similar behavior?

    - are they territorial? and if so, what is the usual size of their territory?

    - was his overnight guest a challenger? did our guy (we've named him 'toby') make a meal of his guest?

    - at what point in the season do they hibernate? we're assuming that he'll head down the hill towards the pond, and find some nice soft earth to dig himself in for the winter. his current dwelling, a space about 1' x 1' x 3" is concrete, and won't provide any insulation during the cold months. and it will be snowed under for most of that time.

    - is there anything we can do to protect him from predators? our property has snakes, raccoons, owls, bats, and foxes. we have dogs, and we're wondering whether we should encourage them to mark around the patio where toby hangs out at night. (naturally, we keep the dogs away from this area.)

    any other suggestions to a couple of neophyte toad-o-philes are, of course, welcome.

    thanks!!

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  3. #2

    Default Re: some general questions about american toads in the wild

    Quote Originally Posted by hopalong View Post
    - are toads usually this predictable? is this unusual, or have others observed similar behavior?
    Yes. They are very predictable. Last summer we had a big fat female American Toad that would return to the same potted hosta plant every day for a few weeks. She literally had thousands of other potted plants to chose from, but every day could be found in the exact same pot. I've seen this preference for a nice location many times before, and in other species (especially Hyla versicolor).

    Quote Originally Posted by hopalong View Post
    - are they territorial? and if so, what is the usual size of their territory?
    Males are territorial in the breeding pond, or at least chase each other away by trying to breed with anything that moves, male, female, toad, frog, fish, logs,your foot, etc. Outside breeding season I don't think I've ever seen any interact so I'm not really sure where they stand on territoriality. Here's an interesting paper where they tracked the dispersal of a few adult females. They found them to wander pretty decent distances, but would also spend several days confined to very small ranges. They also talk about attaching spools of thread to some of the toads to better understand small distances traveled, and sometimes found the same toad in the exact same burrow the next day with a bunch of thread pulled out.

    http://pages.towson.edu/forester/Res...0dispersal.pdf

    Quote Originally Posted by hopalong View Post
    - was his overnight guest a challenger? did our guy (we've named him 'toby') make a meal of his guest?
    I've never seen an American Toad try to eat another American Toad, but that's not to say it's impossible. I've mostly seen them go after relatively small insects and not so much large or even medium sized prey, so I don't really expect them to be cannibalistic and haven't been able to find much on their cannibalistic practices (outside of the tadpole stage). The regular frog cannibals that I've seen (like Rana clamitans) seem to regularly try to cram the largest prey items possible down their throats.

    Quote Originally Posted by hopalong View Post
    - at what point in the season do they hibernate? we're assuming that he'll head down the hill towards the pond, and find some nice soft earth to dig himself in for the winter. his current dwelling, a space about 1' x 1' x 3" is concrete, and won't provide any insulation during the cold months. and it will be snowed under for most of that time.
    They usually start to vanish sometime around October up here, but it's really weather dependent (I'm in southern Ontario). It will likely find a spot on it's own to burrow down into.

    Quote Originally Posted by hopalong View Post
    - is there anything we can do to protect him from predators? our property has snakes, raccoons, owls, bats, and foxes. we have dogs, and we're wondering whether we should encourage them to mark around the patio where toby hangs out at night. (naturally, we keep the dogs away from this area.)
    Personally, I pretty much let nature run it's course. I know we're on Frog Forum, but a snakes gotta eat too. In any case, I don't think there's much you can do to keep snakes at bay. Definitely keep your dog away as you've mentioned, eating an American Toad will likely end up bad for both the dog and the toad.

    Best of luck, and happy toad watching. Also, feel free to post pictures of your toad!

  4. #3
    hopalong
    Guest

    Default Re: some general questions about american toads in the wild

    thanks uncle chester - some real useful (and interesting) information in there.

    toby seems to have decided to use the space beneath the step as winter-quarters.
    at least, that's what the pile of concrete crumbs seems to indicate. namely, that
    he's digging out the loose material and wedging himself back under where the
    steps meet the foundation of the house.

    i'm not entirely sure he knows what he *should* be doing to insulate himself against
    the cold weather to come.

    you can see him at home in the last photo below. in the other three, he's at his
    usual overnight hunting post.

    Name:  AToad.jpg
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Size:  103.8 KBName:  Toad2.jpg
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Size:  112.7 KBName:  tobysteps.jpg
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