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Portrait of a common European toad

Common toad

Common toads secrete an irritant from their skin that prevents most predators from wanting to eat them. Unfortunately for the toads however, a few predators, such as grass snakes and hedgehogs, don't seem to be deterred. If they avoid getting gobbled by a snake or hedgehog, toads can live for up to 40 years.

Scientific name: Bufo bufo

Rank: Species

Common names:

  • Bufo_bufo_gargarizans,
  • European toad

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Distribution

Map showing the distribution of the Common toad taxa

Species range provided by WWF's Wildfinder.

The Common toad can be found in a number of locations including: Asia, Europe, Mediterranean, Russia, United Kingdom, Wales, Ynys-hir nature reserve. Find out more about these places and what else lives there.

Habitats

The following habitats are found across the Common toad distribution range. Find out more about these environments, what it takes to live there and what else inhabits them.

Behaviours

Discover what these behaviours are and how different plants and animals use them.

Additional data source: Animal Diversity Web

Conservation Status

Least Concern

  1. EX - Extinct
  2. EW
  3. CR - Threatened
  4. EN - Threatened
  5. VU - Threatened
  6. NT
  7. LC - Least concern

Population trend: Stable

Year assessed: 2008

Classified by: IUCN 3.1

About

The common toad or European toad (Bufo bufo) is an amphibian that is found throughout most of Europe, with the exception of Iceland, Ireland and some Mediterranean islands. It is one of a group of closely related taxa that are descended from a common ancestral line and which form a species complex. There are several subspecies, the ranges of which intergrade where the populations meet. 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 walk or a short jump and has a greyish brown skin covered with wart-like lumps.

Although usually a solitary animal, in the breeding season large numbers of toads converge on certain breeding ponds. Here there is great competition among the males for females with which to mate. The eggs are laid in gelatinous strings in the water and hatch out into tadpoles. After several months of growth and development, these sprout limbs and undergo metamorphosis into tiny toads. These emerge from the water and remain largely terrestrial for the rest of their lives.

The common toad has long been associated in popular culture with witchcraft, a fact recorded in literature. Touching a toad was at one time thought by superstitious people to be the cause of warts on human skin.

Read more at Wikipedia

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BBC News about Common toad

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