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Fun Facts
Did You Know?
American toads return to their natal ponds to breed. This is called breeding site fidelity and it creates an obvious problem: if everybody comes back to the pond where they were born, then some of the potential mates at that pond are your brothers and sisters. And yet inbreeding in American toad populations is rare. Research documented only 2 of 86 mating pairs that could possibly have been siblings — far lower than random chance would predict
If This Animal Could Talk...
"Watch closely, respect my space, and let my habitat explain the rest of the story."
The Toad That Barely Makes It Into Louisiana, Sings a Long Beautiful Trill That Puts Every Other Toad to Shame, and Represents the Southernmost Population of Its Entire Species
The American toad (Anaxyrus americanus) is one of the most common toads in eastern North America. It is also one of the rarest amphibians in Louisiana. That is not a contradiction — it is what happens when a species that covers the entire eastern United States from Canada to Oklahoma hits the Gulf Coast and decides it has gone far enough.
A Few More Facts
How they hunt and forage: They eat insects, earthworms, slugs, and other invertebrates. Unlike Fowler's toads, they eat earthworms readily, which may be part of how the two species coexist without one completely displacing the other in the narrow zone where they overlap — they are essentially not competing for the exact same food. During the active season outside of breeding, they are hunting the same things every other toad is hunting — insects, worms, slugs, whatever is slow and fits in their mouth — under cover of darkness, in the moist upland forest floor habitat that is their whole world in Louisiana.
Live birth or eggs? no
When young are born: See the detailed species sections below.
What Is the American Toad Often Confused With?
American toads run 2 to 3.5 inches for most adults, with females going larger. The dwarf subspecies in Louisiana runs smaller than the textbook pictures suggest, because the name "dwarf" is doing real work there. The color is anywhere from dull gray to brown to olive to reddish, sometimes speckled, sometimes nearly solid, and apparently subject to change depending on temperature, humidity, and how the toad is feeling about the day. You cannot pin it down. The toad does not want to be pinned down. The key field mark is warts per dark spot. American toads have one or two warts in each dark dorsal blotch. Fowler's toads — the common toad you are almost certainly looking at instead — have three or more. Check the belly: American toad has a spotted belly, Fowler's has a plain white one. Check the shins: American toads have enlarged, spiny tibial warts that stick out from the surrounding skin; Fowler's shin warts are the same size as everything else. The parotoid glands behind the eyes sit slightly away from the cranial crests rather than flush against them.
Drag the handle left and right to compare American Toad side by side with the species it gets mistaken for most.
Open the visual comparison tool
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Accessibility
Accessibility
Finding an American toad in Louisiana is genuinely difficult, and there is no way to make it easy without lying to you. The best realistic approach is upland hardwood forest in the Tunica Hills area or extreme northern Louisiana, during warm wet nights in early spring — March at the latest — near any shallow standing water, listening specifically for the long musical trill.
The call is the most accessible feature of the species by a large margin. For visitors who are blind or have low vision, the American toad trill is one of the most distinctive sounds you can hear in Louisiana when it is present — long, high, sustained, and completely unlike the short nasal calls of every other toad in the state. The challenge is being in the right place at the right time, which is a small number of places and a narrow window. If you hear it, you found something real.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Does American Toad live in North Louisiana?
Yes. If you find one in North Louisiana, you found something that most Louisiana herpetologists have been actively looking for and not finding for their entire careers. In North Louisiana, where the frost line is not very deep and the winters are not very reliable, they may still go under earlier than Fowler's toads do and come back up earlier in spring — that early-spring breeding window is the whole point
How do you identify American Toad?
American toads run 2 to 3.5 inches for most adults, with females going larger. The dwarf subspecies in Louisiana runs smaller than the textbook pictures suggest, because the name "dwarf" is doing real work there. The color is anywhere from dull gray to brown to olive to reddish, sometimes speckled, sometimes nearly solid, and apparently subject to change depending on temperature, humidity, and how the toad is feeling about the day. You cannot pin it down. The toad does not want to be pinned down. The key field mark is warts per dark spot. American toads have one or two warts in each dark dorsal blotch. Fowler's toads — the common toad you are almost certainly looking at instead — have three or more. Check the belly: American toad has a spotted belly, Fowler's has a plain white one. Check the shins: American toads have enlarged, spiny tibial warts that stick out from the surrounding skin; Fowler's shin warts are the same size as everything else. The parotoid glands behind the eyes sit slightly away from the cranial crests rather than flush against them.
What does American Toad eat?
They eat insects, earthworms, slugs, and other invertebrates. Unlike Fowler's toads, they eat earthworms readily, which may be part of how the two species coexist without one completely displacing the other in the narrow zone where they overlap — they are essentially not competing for the exact same food. During the active season outside of breeding, they are hunting the same things every other toad is hunting — insects, worms, slugs, whatever is slow and fits in their mouth — under cover of darkness, in the moist upland forest floor habitat that is their whole world in Louisiana.
Is American Toad dangerous to people?
No. This species is not dangerous to people when it is observed without handling or disturbance
