Toad, your companion in the backyard!

Toad is different from a frog. It lives mostly a terrestrial life. It is usually seen at dusk moving out from its hiding place and search for its prey. It is greyish brown in colour merging with the soil's colour. Skin is rough and dry unlike that of the slimy frog. Female toads are larger than the males. 

They are seen in the fields, forests and country sides having dry areas. At daytime, they are usually seen under stones camouflaging with its surroundings. They live for even 10 years long! 

They are said to shed off their skin repeatedly and eat it! Their preys are slugs, beetles, caterpillars, earthworms, flies, ants and spiders. You can detect about its presence somewhere near, by noting its poops found dropped on the soil. Watch a video on it here:

These poops contain the most of these parts - ant heads, beetle wings that are thrown out as undigestible food. 

They dig pits in the moist soil at dusk, to keep themselves cool in the hot Summer! Watch a video on it:

Female toads lay eggs on the pond water. The hatched out tadpoles grow into small toads before they hop on to the land to survive as an adult. Toad's predators are rats, cats, crows and herons. 

It is the CommonToad (Bufo bufo). It bloats up its body to make its body big when it is attacked. Thus it tries to threaten its predators displaying about its big capacity to offend them! Funny, poor thing.

Explicit mother care of Surinam Toad

I have seen tribal women carry their children on their back in pouches of cloth. I was reminded of this when I was informed about a different kind of frog (toad) that carries its young ones on its back! It is the Surinam toad (Pipa pipa, Star-fingered toad). It is also remarkable that it carries young ones from their embryo stage itself!

Making oneself invisible - by Camouflage!

The word, camouflage was introduced to me when I joined N.C.C. (National Cadet Corps) at school. Then the ways of camouflaging practiced in battlefield were taught. Later I learned that animals also practice this camouflaging to evade a predator attack. Animals change their colors similar to that of their surrounding environment to become invisible!

Investigate this Toad Mystery!

I was wondering the other day at morning: what creature’s scat (animal dropping) could it be! It was black, shiny, smooth and of light weight in the shape of a capsule, lying on the garden. Could it be that of a snake or a bandicoot? I saw the scats each morning and was bewildered.

One day I crushed a scat into pieces with a stick: I found the shiny black heads of ants of various sizes in a brownish matrix! I was astonished. Could it be that of a toad?

Connecting the places where the trails of scats were found led me to the junk room where the toads usually lurk at daytime. Yes, those scats were those of Toads only (Bufo fowleri, ‘Theaurai’ in Tamil). Here in Tamil Nadu, there is a belief that if one kills a toad the person will be contracting the disease, Leprosy! I had tried to kill these toads: but I am often cheated by them. After an hour of beating and ‘killing,’ when I turn up to see the toad’s body it would have disappeared! Toads cannot be killed: they escape by playing dead. But they have to be beaten to pieces for that – as they attract snakes into the garden. Toads have been described in Puranic Tamil songs that they are seen even inside stones! They easily burrow into the sand and aestivate – to escape the unbearable hot and dry summer; their extra moist skin saves them from being dried up. They emerge out of the sand as soon as the monsoon starts.
This wonder toad camouflages to merge with the surrounding – with its brownish skin coloration!