I have recently happened upon a young American Toad, which I suspect to be female (white throat, no chirping). She's a little more than an inch long. She's too mature to have hatched this spring, so she must be at least a year old. Here's a picture:
Is this is a female? Am I likely right about her being roughly a year old? How long do American toads take to reach full size? Does it depend on how much nutrition they get while they're growing, or is it pretty much random? My goal is to have a large female at some point. I've only had her for about three days, and she's already quite docile and has eaten from my fingers once.
Thanks ahead of time!
Sadly, finding out a toad's sex is difficult. Almost impossible from the picture. But the white throat may be a clue, if the frog's not too young to have started calling yet. (At least that's true for tree frogs I don't know about Toads.) Identifying age is also pretty hard.
There is one foolproof way: if your toad starts calling regularly one spring, then you know it's male!
Hello and welcome to the frog forum!!
American toads are pretty awesome. I have a batch of them that my kids and I raised from tadpoles right now. One of the things that I was reading was that they do not hit sexual maturity until 2-3 years old. So it is still possible that you have a male that just has not reached maturity yet. Time will tell! It is usually best to take them from the wild as young as you can find because they adapt much better to captivity. However, if your toad is already eating from your fingers, I think it's doing pretty well!
2.0.3 Hyla versicolor "Eastern Gray Tree Frogs"
2.2.0 Agalychnis callidryas "Red Eyed Tree Frogs"
0.0.3 Dendrobates auratus "Turquoise and Bronze"
0.0.1 Anaxyrus fowleri "Fowler's Toad"
Thanks for the replies, guys! A few more reasons I think that it may be a female is that it has relatively thin forearms. Also (and this is entirely anecdotal), I've noticed that males tend to sit up majestically, sort of like dogs, whereas females tend to crouch closer to the ground when sitting and this one tends towards the latter. Will keep you guys updated! My only concern is that I'm gonna have to get rid of it if it ends up being a male, as I have no desire to sleep in a room full of shrill calls every spring. Oh well, by that time they should be breeding near the ponds and a female would be pretty easy to snag.. I was out of luck this year as I missed that boat and essentially spent two solid weeks turning over logs and leaf litter until I found this one specimen. She seems happy and healthy, so I'm happy!
Another question: do toads camouflage? When I got her she was a brilliant tan/grey pattern with some red mixed in. Now that she's been in her enclosure, she's a dull dark brownish like most toads I've seen. Could this be her adapting to the dark color of the coconut fiber? If so, would buying a lighter colored substrate like sphagnum moss, etc. bring some of those light hues back?
Thanks
Try picking him up with your thumb and index finger just behind his front legs, a male toad will let out a very audible release call. I have tiny little oak toads and all the males squeak when I pick them up in that manner. I've heard that infertile females have a 'I'm not ready' call; however, its very faint compared to the males' call.
She doesn't make any noise when I do that! I was under the impression that you wouldn't be able to tell that way until a toad has reached sexual maturity, but if what you say is true, that's awesome! Thanks for the info.
Anaxyrus Americanus- 2
Ceratophrys Cranwelli- 1
Yeah, I'm not too sure about the maturity thing either, but I do have male toads that seem a little too young to breed yet they squeak all the time when picked up. I'm not sure if sexual maturity needs to be reached since it's a non-breeding call. It's basically an "I'm a male so get off me" call.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifq7d18EgGE
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