northeast-flora-and-fauna

In yesterday's post I mentioned that I heard American Toads as they were advertising their availability (and perhaps desirability) during their mating season. Today's picture actually shows the toads while mating. When I 1st saw the pair, I thought maybe I was seeing the same toad's face twice, once with it reflecting off the water. But upon closer inspection, the toad on the top is clearly smaller than the one on the bottom, and both heads are out of the water. Among toads (and many turtles, and some raptors) the females are noticeably larger than the males, as is true in this case. And despite the closeness of this pair, most toad reproduction happens quite a bit differently than (for example) human reproduction. In most of our toad species (you can read about other varieties here ) the female releases her eggs directly into the water, and the male (at approximately the same time and place) releases his sperm into the water, hopefully resulting in many of those eggs bei...

Last spring I saw a couple people looking at something on a Duke Farms road. It turned out to be a Fowler's Toad toadlet . Our toads (Fowler's and American) are interesting to photograph. Their first instincts are to hop into dense vegetation, which can make them difficult to photograph. But if they don't see a promising escape route, their second plan is to stay very still, which can make them quite easy to photograph. I don't remember very well just how small this fella was, but I'm pretty sure it was under an inch long. I think that at this stage of its life, it eats the same types of stuff that an adult eats, it just needs to find smaller versions of invertebrates to eat. May 18, 2021 at Duke Farms Photo 132039518, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)