AMERICAN TOAD - LITTLE PEPPERS FIELD GUIDE TO WISCONSIN REPTILES AND AMPHIBIANS
Toads sure are peculiar little creatures, and they can be a lot of fun too, especially for small children, or @papa-pepper!
I can remember finding pools full of baby toad tadpoles as a small child, and finding large, full-grown Toads hopping around in the dark at campgrounds too.
Interestingly, their “flavor” is hated by most, but loved by at least one in the animal kingdom. The Eastern Hognose Snake will be featured in an upcoming post, but its favorite food is Toads. When I was a child, I knew a man who ran a Nature Center. Often, Frogs were much easier to find than Toads, so he would always keep a Toad on hand. This way, when the Hognose Snake would get hungry and he could only find Frogs, he would rub the Frogs on his Toad and then feed them to the Hognose. Without rubbing the Frogs on the Toad first, the Snake would not eat them!
The @little-peppers love these cool creatures too.
I remember once finding a whole bunch hopping around late at night down by a river. Red Pepper was the only child still awake who was with us, so I took her out of the vehicle and had her come with me to catch some.
For about 10 or 15 minutes that little one just ran around picking up the fat hoppers. She was young, maybe two or three at the time, and whenever she started heading towards one, it would start jumping away very rapidly. She would giggle and chase them, having so much fun.
The outdoors can be so much fun anyway, but harmless little “friends” like Toads make it all the more exciting. We usually relocate any Toads that we find these days to the Garden, to help with pest control.
HERE IS THE PAGE FROM OUR FIELD GUIDE
These are a few short videos, full of a little more Toad fun!
A BABY TOAD
A TOAD IN THE SUN
A TOAD IN THE HAND
A BABY TOAD IN THE HAND
UPVOTE-FOLLOW-RESTEEM
We had a poodle when I was kid. She found a toad on a visit to grandpa's place and licked it. The look on her face was priceless and the antics she did to get rid of the taste were hysterical. Made a big impression, obviously, as this was over 40 years ago.
Hubby and I were also on a camping trip in the U.P. A huge rainstorm brought us a shower of frogs (I think). They were tiny and there were so many it was hard to walk without squishing some. Never seen anything like it before or since. We were forced to moved to a motel room by the wet. The critters had our campground all to themselves.
Camping in the UP? That sounds nice. We've been rained out of camping before too!
Nice job.
We don't have any toads in New Zealand, only frogs.
We have one frog called Archey's frog that is a bit special.
It lives in the mountains above 400m and doesn't live in a pond!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archey's_frog
How weird is that?
We will have to check that out! It would be weird to have no toads.
Very cute!
Which ones, the Toads or the @little-peppers?
Both of course but I do love those miniature toads/frogs they are so tiny!
Us too!
Being a fellow Wisconsiknight, this reminds me of the old days taking the kids out at night with flashlights looking for toads. I'll be doing that with my granddaughter this summer.
Hopefully we can do that with the parents of @papa-pepper this summer too!
It's always an adventure!
My granddaughter calls me Papa and sometimes Papa Pat. Last year she got to catch lightning bugs at night for the first time. After you covered the the reptiles. You could do bugs and insects.
We sure could!