This might look like an ad for Burt's Bees, but I swear I don't work for them, I really don't. But I did use their lip balm to show scale. When Bruce saw this image, he said: "You better circle the toad because no one will be able to find it!"
Well, I didn't circle it and in the event you haven't found it -- it really blends in well with the caliche road -- the tiny toadlet is in the middle-right of the image, less than an inch below the red cap of the lip balm that I used to show scale. This is a real little fella, less than the size of a pencil eraser.
I think it is more than likely the common Gulf Coast Toad (Incilius valliceps, formerly Bufo valliceps). There were dozens of them, probably hundreds of them, newly emerged from the roadside puddles where they'd been developing tadpoles.Gulf Coast toads are common throughout Gallon Jug Estate, Central America and the southern United States.
Posts
Carolyn, Great blog! I love this little toad!! Deedee
ReplyDeleteThanks Deedee! I appreciate your kind comment. Those little toads were jumping around like popcorn in a pan -- it was really something to see.
ReplyDeleteWe raised a few tadpoles (Rana temporaria, I'm pretty sure) from a local pond a couple of years ago -- when the first one hopped out of the bowl and onto our kitchen windowsill we nicknamed him (?) "minifrog" and hastily made arrangements to return him to his pond so that he could find some yummy bugs to eat. He wasn't quite as small as your toad, but close. Quite a vigorous hopper, too!
ReplyDeleteDawn, also known as ZoraP