Hi all,

I've been lurking for a few months and finally made an account.
I am the proud caretaker of 2 American toads (well, I believe them to be American. I have a difficult time telling them apart from Fowler's).
I got both of the little guys from my backyard this Fall when we had a huge surplus of toads. When I found them, they were quite small, presumably having been born that Spring / Summer. Since then they have doubled, if not tripled in size.

Meet Betty and Ansberta:



Betty is the lighter tan colored one on *top and Ansberta is the darker one on the *bottom (*more on that later...)

Now, I am asking for help sexing them because up until now I had assumed that they were both female. I have read that toads are very hard to sex until they are at least a few years old, but I figured they were both girls for the following reasons:
* No large dark patch under throat
* Skinny front legs
* No release chirp when picked up from behind

But lo-and-behold I came home the other day and Betty had mounted Ansberta and was riding her, which appeared to be amplexus! This was clearly distressing for Ansberta, who was trying to escape. It doesn't help that she is already pretty timid, and that Betty is about 1.25 - 1.5 times larger than her (which, if I had to guess either one of them was female, I would have guessed it was Betty since she is much larger!)

Has anyone ever had a female toad mount another? Can you help me sex these toads? And have you ever seen young toads (less than 1 year) mount one another?

Here are some more pics:


^ Betty



^ Ansberta


^ Both of them being cute -- Betty is on the bottom here


If it would be helpful in sexing, I can upload more pictures.