North American Toad Habitats Are Buggy, Developed, Lighted and Peopled

Summary: North American toad habitats are buggy, developed, lighted and peopled in Manitoba, North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas eastward.

American toad (Anaxyrus americanus): Savannah River Ecology Lab (SREL)/John D. Willson, via USGS Amphibian Research and Monitoring Initiative (ARMI)

North American toad habitats are buggy, developed, lighted and peopled in Manitoba, North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas eastward through Canadian and, apart Delaware and Florida, Unitedstatesian Atlantic coastlines.

North American toads bear their common name for belonging in central through eastern Canadian and Unitedstatesian habitats and to their true-toad membership in the Bufonidae family. They carry accepted and anticipated species names, Bufo americanus (from Latin būfō, “toad” and americānus, “America’s, concerning America”) and Anaxyrus americanus (from Doric ϝάναξ, “king”) respectively. American toad species divide into first-named eastern American (Anaxyrus/Bufo americanus americanus), second-named Hudson Bay (Anaxyrus/Bufo americanus copei) and third-named dwarf American (Anaxyrus/Bufo americanus charlesmithi) toad subspecies.

One- to 10-year expected life cycles entail numerous night-lighted niches, before and after actual breeding-season months, in residential back yards and gardens and in woodland environments.

North American toad life cycles favor February or March through June southward, March or April through June northward, as annual breeding-season months in temporary water bodies.

Physically and sexually mature 2- to 3-year-old female toads generate 6,000 eggs into two long string that they guide to pool and other temporary water-body floors. Viable eggs hatch within seven days into gill-breathing, herbivorous (from Latin herba, “grass” and vorāre, “to devour”), swimming tadpoles that have edible algae and plant tissue. The tadple interim includes ingestable organic debris and suspended matter until 7- to 12-millimeter- (0.3- to 0.5-inch-) long bodies impel them into the metamorphosed toadlet interval.

Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis fungal disease, climate-changing global warming, fertilizer runoff, nonnative species, toxic pesticides, trematode fluke-induced deformities, ultraviolet radiation and wilderness-urban interfaces jeopardize North American toad habitats.

Five months kindle physically and sexually mature two- to three-year-old male toads kineticizing annual week-long breeding seasons from eastern Canada through northeastern and southeastern United States.

Male toads lodge at one stationary location or at two, two-plus movable lookouts around the temporary water bodies where female toads look lively or lounge lacklusterly. Mature and metamorphosed toads migrate for non-breeding manifestations by mid-July at wilderness-urban interfaces in outdoor lights-glowing private and public back yards and gardens and sky-glowing woodlands. The Anura (from Latin an-, “not” and Greek ουρά, “tail”) amphibian order member needs outdoor lighting-attracted brown marmorated, June and May bugs; crickets; mosquitoes; and moths.

North American toad habitats offer their season's coldest temperature ranges, north to southward, from 0 to 30 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 17.8 to minus 1.11 degrees Celsius).

Lang Elliott, Carl Gerhardt and Carlos Davidson present 2- to 4.375-inch (5.08- to 11.11-centimeter) snout-vent (excrementary opening) lengths in The Frogs and Toads of North America.

Mature males, unlike larger-bodied, light-throated, untubercle-fingered females quarter dark throats and first and second fingers with horny tubercles (from Latin tuberculum, “boil, bump, pimple, protuberance, swelling”). Chunky, dry, squat-bodied adults retain gold-rimmed eyes and sometimes reveal bright or plain patterns; center-, light-striped backs; dark, one- to two-warted belly spots; and light patches. Advertisement calls sound like 5- to 30-second musical trills set at different pitches and alternating and overlapping calls even as abdomen-vibrated, anti-contact release calls sound chirpy.

Brown-gray-olive-red, crawling, hefty, hopping, short-legged, warty bodies with troublesome bufotoxins from parotoid glands not or somewhat touching cranial crests trill throughout eastern North American toad habitats.

Three subspecies to the North American toad species acknowledged taxonomically as Anaxyrus americanus (from Doric ϝάναξ, “king” and americānus, “America’s, concerning America”) and Bufo americanus (from Latin būfō, “toad” and americānus, “America’s, concerning America”), abide in eastern North America from northeastern Canada through southeastern United States. South Carolina-born herpetologist, naturalist, physician and zoologist John Edwards Holbrook (Dec. 31, 1796-Sep. 8, 1871) scientifically analyzed the species in 1836 and the first-named, nominate subspecies, eastern American toads (Anaxyrus americanus americanus, Bufo americanus americanus). Massachusetts-born ethnologist and ornithologist Henry Wetherbee Henshaw (March 3, 1850-Aug. 1, 1930) and Pennsylvania-born herpetologist, naturalist, ornithologist and surgeon Harry Crécy Yarrow (Nov. 19, 1840-July 2, 1929) scientifically analyzed in 1878 the second-named subspecies, North American Hudson Bay toads (Anaxyrus americanus copei, Bufo americanus copei), in appreciation of Pennsylvania-born comparative anatomist, herpetologist, ichthyologist, paleontologist and zoologist Edward Drinker Cope (July 28, 1840-April 12, 1897). Maine-born ecologist, embryologist, herpetologist and zoologist Arthur Norris Bragg (Dec. 18, 1897-Aug. 27, 1968) scientifically analyzed in 1954 the third-named subspecies, dwarf American toads (Anaxyrus americanus charlesmithi, Bufo americanus charlesmithi) of Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky and Missouri, in appreciation of University of Oklahoma Department of Zoological Sciences Professor, Dr. Charles Cinton Smith (April 30, 1910-Oct. 23, 1966), in Norman, Oklahoma; range map for American toad (Anaxyrus americanus): U.S. Geological Survey Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center (NPWRC), Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

American toad (Anaxyrus americanus); Islesboro Island, Waldo County, southern Maine: Savannah River Ecology Lab (SREL) /John D. Willson, via USGS Amphibian Research and Monitoring Initiative (ARMI) @ https://armi.usgs.gov/gallery/result.php?search=Lithobates+catesbeianus

Three subspecies to the North American toad species acknowledged taxonomically as Anaxyrus americanus (from Doric ϝάναξ, “king” and americānus, “America’s, concerning America”) and Bufo americanus (from Latin būfō, “toad” and americānus, “America’s, concerning America”), abide in eastern North America from northeastern Canada through southeastern United States. South Carolina-born herpetologist, naturalist, physician and zoologist John Edwards Holbrook (Dec. 31, 1796-Sep. 8, 1871) scientifically analyzed the species in 1836 and the first-named, nominate subspecies, eastern American toads (Anaxyrus americanus americanus, Bufo americanus americanus). Massachusetts-born ethnologist and ornithologist Henry Wetherbee Henshaw (March 3, 1850-Aug. 1, 1930) and Pennsylvania-born herpetologist, naturalist, ornithologist and surgeon Harry Crécy Yarrow (Nov. 19, 1840-July 2, 1929) scientifically analyzed in 1878 the second-named subspecies, North American Hudson Bay toads (Anaxyrus americanus copei, Bufo americanus copei), in appreciation of Pennsylvania-born comparative anatomist, herpetologist, ichthyologist, paleontologist and zoologist Edward Drinker Cope (July 28, 1840-April 12, 1897). Maine-born ecologist, embryologist, herpetologist and zoologist Arthur Norris Bragg (Dec. 18, 1897-Aug. 27, 1968) scientifically analyzed in 1954 the third-named subspecies, dwarf American toads (Anaxyrus americanus charlesmithi, Bufo americanus charlesmithi) of Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky and Missouri, in appreciation of University of Oklahoma Department of Zoological Sciences Professor, Dr. Charles Cinton Smith (April 30, 1910-Oct. 23, 1966), in Norman, Oklahoma; range map for American toad (Anaxyrus americanus): U.S. Geological Survey Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center (NPWRC), Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:B_americanus_range23.png

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