On summer nights across rural Kentucky homeowners may find an unexpected visitor hanging around their porch –the American toad. Insects are attracted to the porch lights, and that draws the toads.
The most common toad in Kentucky is the American Toad (Bufo americannus), whose range overlaps with the Fowler’s Toad (Bufo fowlerii). Both of these toads are similar in color, making it difficult to tell them apart. American toads are usually dark brown, but since there’s quite a bit of color variation, a toad may be olive to light brown to dark brown, or take on reddish coloration.
For years, a big toad would show up on our front porch. Our kids named him Frankie, but a wildlife biologist once told me he was probably a she since the really large toads are usually females, and the males are smaller.
That’s interesting since the opposite is usually true in most of nature, as males tend to be larger than females.
American toads can live to be quite old by critter standards, maybe 10 years under ideal conditions.
Our Frankie was like a pet to our young children. My son John would dump a handful of worms on the porch, and we would watch in disbelief as the big toad would slurp them down one by one with swipes of a long, white tongue.
American toads have spotted bellies, dark throats (males), and sometimes have a light brown stripe down their backs.
According to the National Audubon Society Field Guide to Reptiles and Amphibians, the American Toad can live in a wide range of habitats, from mowed lawns to forested mountains. They are voracious insect eaters, and are primarily nocturnal.
Toad houses made from clay pots, are ideal places for toads to hang out on a shady front porch. Clay pots stay relatively cool, especially when they are dark colors.
We bought a clay “toad house” at a yard sale as a joke, but Frankie actually used it.
Loss of habitat from urban sprawl has impacted toad numbers. They are common in rural areas, but in towns or suburbs, toads are present only where there are shady yards with shrubs and vegetation. Toads breathe through their skins, so they need cool, moist spots. That’s why they like the clay houses.
Their predators are birds, snakes, off-road 4-wheelers, and automobiles on roadways, but toads have a defense mechanism. Bumps on the back of their heads secrete a toxin that deters predators. It can make anything that tries to eat them sick, and foam at the mouth.
Like frogs, toads start their lives in water. Breeding begins in March and continues through early summer. They lay strings of eggs in water attached to vegetation, and the eggs hatch into tadpoles. The tadpoles eventually lose their tails, grow legs and then emerge from the water.
Toads spend the rest of their lives are spent on land, and only head back to water in extreme heat. They have short back legs so they hop, instead of jump, like a frog. Toads are really good at digging. In winter they bury themselves in dirt and their metabolism gets really slow.
To learn more about Kentucky amphibians visit: http://www.kentuckyawake.org/Amphibians.
Art Lander Jr. is outdoors editor for KyForward. He is a native Kentuckian, a graduate of Western Kentucky University and a life-long hunter, angler, gardener and nature enthusiast. He has worked as a newspaper columnist, magazine journalist and author and is a former staff writer for Kentucky Afield Magazine, editor of the annual Kentucky Hunting & Trapping Guide and Kentucky Spring Hunting Guide, and co-writer of the Kentucky Afield Outdoors newspaper column.