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Fun Facts
Did You Know?
When a Fowler's toad feels threatened and its usual options are not working, it goes limp. Completely. Legs tucked, body slack, totally motionless — a committed performance of having already died that fools predators who prefer their meals to still be participating. If you pick up a Fowler's toad and it suddenly goes boneless in your hand, it did not have a heart attack. It is running a bluff
If This Animal Could Talk...
"Watch closely, respect my space, and let my habitat explain the rest of the story."
The Toad You Actually Find in Louisiana, the One That Sounds Like a Nasal Sheep, Plays Dead When Threatened, and Is Losing Ground to an Invader in the Southern Part of the State
That toad on your sidewalk is a Fowler's toad. The one under your porch light. The one your dog mouthed and then spent ten minutes foaming and looking personally betrayed. Almost every toad you have ever seen in North Louisiana is a Fowler's toad (Anaxyrus fowleri), because this is the common toad of the state — present statewide, comfortable in backyards, fields, woodlands, and road shoulders, and completely unbothered by the fact that most people either do not know what it is or think it is just "a toad."
A Few More Facts
How they hunt and forage: Insects, mostly. Beetles, ants, small moths, crickets, anything moving on the ground surface at night within tongue range. Fowler's toads are ambush predators with a sit-and-wait hunting style — they park near a light source, wait for insects to come to them, and clean up. This is extremely efficient and also extremely good for your pest populations, which is a reason to appreciate the toad under your porch light rather than relocating it. It is doing pest control for free and asking nothing in return except to not be picked up by your dog. Fowler's toads do not eat earthworms, which puts them at odds with American toads, who eat earthworms constantly and enthusiastically. The reason is not definitively established. The worms are right there. They are slow. They are nutritious. The Fowler's toad will not touch them. This is the kind of dietary idiosyncrasy that science has documented without fully explaining, which is its right.
Live birth or eggs? no
When young are born: See the detailed species sections below.
What Is the Fowler’s Toad Often Confused With?
Fowler's toads run 2 to 3.7 inches, which puts them in the "unmistakably a toad" size range without being large enough to be genuinely alarming. The color is usually brown, gray, or olive green — classic "trying very hard not to be noticed" coloration — sometimes with a faint light stripe down the middle of the back. Some individuals go reddish. Some go greenish. The toad did not consult you before choosing. Some individuals go reddish. Some go greenish. Louisiana has a lot of sun and the toad makes its own decisions. The fastest way to confirm you are looking at a Fowler's toad rather than an American toad is the warts. Each dark spot on a Fowler's back contains three or more warts. American toads have one or two per spot. This is the kind of field mark that sounds easy until you are crouched over a moving toad in bad light trying to count warts, at which point you will understand why herpetologists drink.
Drag the handle left and right to compare Fowler’s Toad side by side with the species it gets mistaken for most.
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Accessibility
Accessibility
You do not need a trail, a boat, or waterproof anything to find a Fowler's toad. Walk outside on a warm night after rain between May and September. That is it. Check under your porch light, around your garden, along the road near any standing water. The toad will be there because it has been there, hunting your insects, since before you moved in.
For visitors who are blind or have low vision, the Fowler's toad call in breeding season is loud, nasal, distinctive, and carries well across open ground. A chorus of calling males near a pond in May is audible from a vehicle with the windows down. There is no other sound in North Louisiana quite like it, which makes it genuinely easy to identify even on first hearing.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Does Fowler's Toad live in North Louisiana?
Yes. Almost every toad you have ever seen in North Louisiana is a Fowler's toad (Anaxyrus fowleri), because this is the common toad of the state — present statewide, comfortable in backyards, fields, woodlands, and road shoulders, and completely unbothered by the fact that most people either do not know what it is or think it is just "a toad.". In practice, if you are in North Louisiana and it is a toad, it is a Fowler's.
The eastern hognose snake has largely solved this problem by evolving resistance to bufotoxins and a specialized upturned snout for rooting toads out of the ground, which is the kind of evolutionary arms race that makes you wonder what exactly is happening underground in North Louisiana.
How do you identify Fowler's Toad?
Fowler's toads run 2 to 3.7 inches, which puts them in the "unmistakably a toad" size range without being large enough to be genuinely alarming. The color is usually brown, gray, or olive green — classic "trying very hard not to be noticed" coloration — sometimes with a faint light stripe down the middle of the back. Some individuals go reddish. Some go greenish. The toad did not consult you before choosing. Some individuals go reddish. Some go greenish. Louisiana has a lot of sun and the toad makes its own decisions. The fastest way to confirm you are looking at a Fowler's toad rather than an American toad is the warts. Each dark spot on a Fowler's back contains three or more warts. American toads have one or two per spot. This is the kind of field mark that sounds easy until you are crouched over a moving toad in bad light trying to count warts, at which point you will understand why herpetologists drink.
What does Fowler's Toad eat?
What It Eats
Insects, mostly. Beetles, ants, small moths, crickets, anything moving on the ground surface at night within tongue range. Fowler's toads are ambush predators with a sit-and-wait hunting style — they park near a light source, wait for insects to come to them, and clean up. This is extremely efficient and also extremely good for your pest populations, which is a reason to appreciate the toad under your porch light rather than relocating it. It is doing pest control for free and asking nothing in return except to not be picked up by your dog.
Fowler's toads do not eat earthworms, which puts them at odds with American toads, who eat earthworms constantly and enthusiastically. The reason is not definitively established. The worms are right there. They are slow. They are nutritious. The Fowler's toad will not touch them. This is the kind of dietary idiosyncrasy that science has documented without fully explaining, which is its right.
What they will eat is velvet ants — wingless wasps in the family Mutillidae, nicknamed "cow killers," whose sting is so painful that humans avoid them on purpose. The Fowler's toad eats them without breaking stride. The sting that will ruin your afternoon does nothing to this toad, and the toad appears to be aware of this in the casual way of an animal that has never had to worry about a particular problem. It eats the wasps. It moves on. It has not mentioned it to anyone because there is no one to mention it to, but it absolutely would if it could.
Tadpoles eat algae, scraped off rocks and plant stems. They are herbivores until metamorphosis, at which point they immediately become carnivores and never look back. The transition is fast and complete and somewhat ominous if you think about it too long.
Is Fowler's Toad dangerous to people?
No. This species is not dangerous to people when it is observed without handling or disturbance
