North American Oak Toad Habitats Are Grassy, Sandy, Scrubby and Woody

Summary: North American oak toad habitats are grassy, sandy, scrubby and woody coastal plains from Virginia southward through Florida, then westward into Louisiana.

oak toad (Anaxyrus quercicus): USGS National Wetlands Research Center/Brad Michael "Bones" Glorioso, Public Domain, via USGS Amphibian Research and Monitoring Initiative (ARMI)

North American oak toad habitats are grassy, sandy, scrubby and woody coastal plains from southeasternmost Virginia southward through North and South Carolina, Georgia and Florida, then westward into Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana.

The Bufonidae (from Latin būfo, “toad” and Greek -ειδής [“-like”] via Latin -idæ) true-toad family members bear their common name for oak-leafed colors and oak-wooded habitats. The bufonid members of the Anura (from Greek ἀν-, “not” and οὐρά, “tail” via ανοὐρά) shortbodied, tail-less amphibian order carry the accepted scientific name, Bufo quercicus. They simultaneously defer to the anticipated scientific renaming, Anaxyrus quercicus (from Greek άναξ, "king, lord, military leader, tribal chief" and Latin quercus [“oak”] and -icus “of”]). .

South Carolina-born herpetologist, naturalist, physician and zoologist John Edwards Holbrook (Dec. 31, 1796-Sep. 8, 1871) effectuated scientific descriptions and taxonomic designations of oak toads in 1840.

Oak toad life cycles favor spring and summer rain-fed ditches, ponds, pools and puddles with grassy thickets and sandy, well-drained soils in oak-pine scrublands and woodlands.

April through October give oak toad life cycles with daytime and nighttime breeding season months despite pine-oak woodland developers and red imported fire ants (Solenopsis invicta). Heavy spring rains herald as annual breeding sites shallow pools that house oak toad eggs on aquatic grass blades 1.6 to 4.7 inches below surface waters. Their eggs perhaps inherit injurious chemical-laced interiors from the toxins instantly impelled from toad fathers- and mothers-to-be’s parotoid (from Greek παρά, “near” and οὖς, “ear”) glands.

Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis fungal disease, fertilizer runoff, globally warmed climate change, nonnative species, toxic pesticides, trematode fluke-induced deformities and ultraviolet radiation jeopardize North American oak toad habitats.

Water keeps 700 bead-chained, 2- to 8-clustered, 0.039-inch (1-millimeter) eggs for 24- to 36-hour hatching into 0.28- to 0.32-inch- (7- to 8-millimeter-) long gill-breathing, keel-tailed tadpoles.

Just under 2- to 4-year-long life expectancies lead 4- to 6-week-old, 0.75- to 1.3-inch- (19.05- to 33.02-millimeter-) long tadpoles into 1.5- to 2.3-year-long metamorphosed toadlet stages. Crayfish, dragonfly nymphs and giant waterbugs menace tadpoles even as crows, garter and hognosed snakes, gopher frogs, marine toads, raccoons and raptors menace toadlets and toads. Tadpoles need algae, organic debris, plant tissue and suspended matter even as such arthropods (ἄρθρον [“joint”] and πούς [“foot”]) as ants nourish North American oak toads.

North American oak toad habitats offer season-coldest temperature ranges, northward to southward and southwestward, from 0 to 35 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 17.8 to 1.7 degrees Celsius).

North American oak toads prefer artificial and natural ditches, ponds, pool edges and puddles with emergent, floating, submerged, waterside grassy, herbaceous, oak-dominated, pine-dominant, weedy, woody plants.

Lang Elliott, Carl Gerhardt and Carlos Davidson quantify 0.75- to 1.31-inch (1.91- to 3.33-centimeter) snout-vent (excrementary opening) lengths in The Frogs and Toads of North America. Adults reveal gray to black bodies with dark, symmetrical spots around one midline yellowish stripe; large, sausage-shaped, upward-curving vocal sacs when inflated; and orange-red small spots. Advertisement calls sound like baby chicken-, bird- and squeaking wheel-like, briskly repeated, high-pitched, loud, non-trilling, penetrating seee-seee-seee-seee-seee-seee peeps that sound overpowering as choruses at close range.

Dark-spotted, orange-red-warted, peeping gray to black bodies with large sausage-shaped, upward-curving vocal sacs and one midline yellow stripe tread surreptitiously in North American oak toad habitats.

range map for oak toad (Anaxyrus quercicus): National Amphibian Atlas, Public Domain, via USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center

Acknowledgment

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

Image credits:

oak toad (Anaxyrus quercicus); Picayune Strand State Forest, Collier County, southwestern Florida: USGS National Wetlands Research Center/Brad Michael "Bones" Glorioso, Public Domain, via USGS Amphibian Research and Monitoring Initiative (ARMI) @ https://armi.usgs.gov/gallery/result.php?search=Anaxyrus+quercicus

range map for oak toad (Anaxyrus quercicus): National Amphibian Atlas, Public Domain, via USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center @ https://www.pwrc.usgs.gov:8080/mapserver/naa/

For further information:

Aardema, J.; S. Beam; J. Boner; J. Bussone; C. Ewart; I. Kaplan; K. Kiefer; S. Lindsay; E. Merrill; W. Moretz; J. Roberts; E. Rockwell; M. Reott; J. Willson; A. Pickens; W. Guthrie; A. Young; Y. Kornilev; W. Anderson; G. Connette; E. Eskew; E. Teague; M. Thomas; and A. Tutterow. "Oak Toad Amaxyrus quercicus." Herps of NC > Amphibians and Reptiles of North Carolina > Frogs and Toads.
Available @ https://herpsofnc.org/oak-toad/

Buckley, Ryan. 2006. "Anaxyrus quercicus Oak Toad" (On-line). Animal Diversity Web. Ann Arbor MI: University of Michigan Museum of Zoology.
Available @ https://animaldiversity.org/accounts/Anaxyrus_quercicus/

For further information:

Elliott, Lang; Carl Gerhardt; and Carlos Davidson. 2009. The Frogs and Toads of North America: A Comprehensive Guide to Their Identification, Behavior and Calls. Boston MA; New York NY: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Frost, Darrel. "Anaxyrus quercicus (Holbrook, 1840)." American Museum of Natural History > Our Research > Vertebrate Zoology > Herpetology > Amphibians Species of the World Database.
Available @ http://research.amnh.org/vz/herpetology/amphibia/index.php//Amphibia/Anura/Bufonidae/Anaxyrus/Anaxyrus-quercicus

Gill, Theodore. Biographical Memoir of John Edwards Holbrook, 1794-1871. Read Before th National Academy of Sciences, April 22, 1903.
Available via NASOnline (National Academy of Sciences) @ http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/holbrook-j-e.pdf

Hammerson, Geoffrey. 2004. "Anaxyrus quercicus." IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2004: e.T54743A11197905. doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2004.RLTS.T54743A11197905.en
Available @ https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/54743/56952440

Holbrook, John Edwards, M.D. 1840. "Bufo quercicus. Plate XXII." North American Herpetology; Or, A Description of the Reptiles Inhabiting the United States. Vol. IV: 109-111. Philadelphia PA: J. Dobson.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/3682832

"Oak Toad Anaxyrus quercicus." iNaturalist > More > Guides > Frogs and Toads of Virginia > Oak Toad.
Available @ https://www.inaturalist.org/guide_taxa/8512

"The 2012 USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map." The National Gardening Association > Gardening Tools > Learning Library USDA Hardiness Zone > USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map.
Available @ https://garden.org/nga/zipzone/2012/