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Toad is a common name for certain frogs, especially of the family Bufonidae, that are characterized by dry, leathery skin, short legs, and large bumps covering the parotoid glands. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] In popular culture ( folk taxonomy ), toads are distinguished from frogs by their drier, rougher skin and association with more terrestrial habitats. [ 3 ]
While reptiles and amphibians can be quite similar externally, the French zoologist Pierre André Latreille recognized the large physiological differences at the beginning of the 19th century and split the herptiles into two classes, giving the four familiar classes of tetrapods: amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals.
It is one of a group of closely related animals that are descended from a common ancestral line of toads and which form a species complex. The toad is an inconspicuous animal as it usually lies hidden during the day. It becomes active at dusk and spends the night hunting for the invertebrates on which it feeds. It moves with a slow, ungainly ...
Frog appears to have been adapted from frosc as part of this trend. [11] Meanwhile, the word toad, first attested as Old English tādige, is unique to English and is likewise of uncertain etymology. [14] It is the basis for the word tadpole, first attested as Middle English taddepol, apparently meaning 'toad-head'. [15]
Adult western toads are preyed upon by common ravens (Corvus corax) and probably by other birds, reptiles, amphibians, and mammals as well. [ 15 ] [ 16 ] A badger ( Taxidea taxus ) was recorded as having consumed five adult Anaxyrus (probably western toad, as it was the only Anaxyrus species in the area) in Wyoming.
The evolution of tetrapods began about 400 million years ago in the Devonian Period with the earliest tetrapods evolved from lobe-finned fishes. [1] Tetrapods (under the apomorphy-based definition used on this page) are categorized as animals in the biological superclass Tetrapoda, which includes all living and extinct amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals.
Named Gondwanax paraisensis, the four-legged reptile species was roughly the size of a small dog with a long tail, or about 1 meter (39 inches) long and weighing between 3 and 6 kg (7 to 13 pounds ...
A male common toad grasps a female with his front legs as part of the mating process. Common toads stay in amplexus for several days. As the female lays a long, double string of small black eggs , the male fertilises them with his sperm ; the gelatinous egg strings, which may contain 3000 to 6000 eggs and be 3 to 4.5 metres (10 to 15 ft) in ...