Eastern Spadefoot Toad - finally!

The site is not a natural wetland, but a low-lying agricultural field along the Hocking River. It was planted in corn last year. Heavy rains, and overflow from swollen river waters, inundate the field for short periods. Thus, the site is not high in amphibian diversity - only the most adaptive species seem to occur there. There were many Spring Peepers, such as above.

Many American Toads were also in the waters, with some males singing. This is a pair in amplexus, or the mating "hug" (male on top). I also heard a Green Frog or two, and a few Western Chorus Frogs, but that was about it.

This is what we had come to find, though - the fascinating Eastern Spadefoot. I met Laura on the southeast side of Columbus around 8 pm, and initially we had reservations about the evening's prospects. The temperature seemed to be dropping, and was hovering around 46 F. We felt that if the mercury plunged much lower, it would keep the toads under ground. However, as we moved south, the temperature gradually rose to about 50-51 F and remained there until nearly midnight, when we left. Plenty warm for amphibians.

A spadefoot, showing its wide spread big goggle eyes, and relatively smooth skin, at least for a toad. There are seven or nine species in its family, the Scaphiopodidae, depending on how the taxonomy is interpreted, and all but the species at hand occur in the southwestern U.S. and Mexico.

Eastern Spadefoots apparently spend most of their life underground, thus a thorough understanding of their life history is tough to ferret out. Limited observations suggest that toads probably come above ground more often than is though, at least on wet or very humid nights, but detection is by far easiest during mass mating emergences, when males are vocalizing.

A closeup of the paddlelike hind foot, showing the animal's namesake spade. The elongate hardened dark ridge helps the toad dig efficiently in the sandy soft soils in which they inhabit.