Midwife Toad
Identification: Small, plump toad with large head and eyes with a vertical pupil. Length up to 5 cm, usually smaller. Paratoid glands and ear drums small, but usually easily visible. Skin quite smooth for a toad, but with small warts. Back grey, brown or greenish, mostly with black points and/or vague brown to greenish spots. A row of larger yellowish to reddish warts is found on the flanks. Belly whitish to light pink; front part of belly and throat often spotted with grey. No webbing between the toes. Males are smaller than females and have thicker front legs. Males have strings of eggs wound around their hind limbs during a large part of their active period. No vocal sac or nuptial pads.
Range: Northern part of Spain and Portugal, all over France, south-west and mid-Germany, north Switzerland, east and south Belgium. In the British Isles, there have been isolated introductions into Bedfordshire, Yorkshire, Northamptonshire, Hampshire (Littleton), Devon and south-west London. The Bedfordshire colony was originally introduced to a Bedfordshire nursery in 1903 and has persisted for more than a century already.
Habitat: Stays mainly on land, but usually found fairly near water. The males enter the water only if the eggs are ready to hatch. Midwife Toads prefer hilly, rough terrain. Habitats include open edges of woods, small-scale cultivated land, parks, sand and stone pits, rockslides, and river- and railway embankments. Sometimes occur up in villages and towns, for example on railway embankments, in churchyards and gardens. Larvae are deposited in sunny to more shadowed waters like pools, wells, drinking troughs and flooded tyre tracks. Occurs up to altitudes of 2400 metres in the Pyrenees.
Habits: Mainly active in the evening and at night. Most active just after sunset. Breeding season from the end of March to August. In warm, sheltered places like gardens in towns or in pits, males are sometimes heard calling as early as February. Copulates on land, after which the male winds the strings of 20-80 eggs around his hind legs and keeps them with him. Females can produce several clutches of eggs in a season. Sometimes males have strings of eggs of several (2-4) females with them, so that one male may sometimes carry over 150 eggs. The male retreats as much as possible to a humid burrow, such as under large stones, to prevent the eggs from drying out. In the beginning, the eggs are whitish, but later they become bright yellow to brown. After a while, the eyes of the larva become visible as dark points; later you can even see the whole larva in the egg. After 4-7 weeks, the eggs are ready to hatch and the male deposits them in water. The newly hatched larvae are 10-17 mm long and grow up to 5 to 10 cm. They are light brown with dark spots. Most newly metamorphosed toads crawl onto land in August and September when they are 2-2.5 cm long. They mature after 2-3 years. In cool summers, or when they come from late clutches, the larvae can't complete their metamorphosis and may overwinter as larvae in the water. The larvae mainly feed on vegetable matter like algae and gradually switch to animal matter like insects and earthworms. Hibernates dug into the ground, in abandoned holes from other animals, beneath stones or logs and in damp cellars.
How to find: Go towards their typical call. Approach them carefully, they are quite shy.
Call: A high-pitched, musical "poe
poe
poe
". One call every 1-3 seconds. Calls higher and shorter than the Yellow-bellied Toad. At a distance, a chorus may sound like far-off church bells. From nearby, the sound is more like a clear radio signal. The sound of a calling individual can be confused with Scops and Pygmy owls. Individuals answer each other and vary considerably in pitch according to their size. Females also call and may alternate calls with their potential mate. They can be heard from the end of March until August. Calls are mainly in the evening and at night, but on warm humid days, they also occur during the day. These toads often call from their refuges away from water, and they are very difficult to locate then.