American Toad

Here's an American Toad I met a couple months ago. Or at least I'm pretty sure it's an American Toad. Despite providing what looks like a pretty clear picture of the toad, nobody on iNaturalist has confirmed (or refuted) my contention that this is an American Toad.

The only other contender in NJ for an ID is the Fowler's Toad. While I have better head shots of this toad, the view below is probably the one that best distinguishes its species.

First I need to tell you what the parotoid glands are. These are the pair of light-colored bulges above the shoulders and behind the eyes. Overall they're probably a little smaller but longer than the toad's eyes. They store toxins that the toad can secrete to make themselves bad-tasting and somewhat poisonous. (They might be the reason we humans don't often eat toads.)

Though both species of toad has parotoid glands, in the American Toad the glands do not touch the ridges behind the toad's eyes. And it looks to me like there is a little space between the parotoid glands and the eye ridges.

Second we look for wart blotches. Ideally wart blotches will be a different color than the rest of the toad's skin, though in this individual they don't stand out very well. The key thing here though is whether there are any blotches with 3 or more warts. If all the blotches have 1-2 warts, that's evidence of an American Toad, but if some of the (larger) blotches have 3+ warts then that would be evidence of a Fowler's Toad.

In this toad, most of the blotches are single wart blotches, though I see one 2-wart blotch near the left parotoid gland. The wart blotches seem to confirm the American Toad identification to me.

What if the parotoid gland test and the wart blotch test point in different directions? Well that's beyond my identification skills. I wouldn't rule out a hybrid toad, but in most cases I'd look more closely at the parotoid gland and the blotches - is it possible I didn't look closely enough, and erroneously interpreted one of the tests?

June 11, 2021 at Washington Valley Park
Photo 136371448, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)


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