Southern Toad - Bufo terrestris

• Diagnostic Features:
  • Size: 1.75 to 4 inches (44 to 98 mm)
  • Color:
    • Ground color usually some shade of brown, but may be red to black
  • Other:
    • Pronounced knobs and high cranial crests
    • With or without dark spots that contain one or two or more warts
    • May be a light middorsal stripe
  • Sexual Dimorphism:
    • Males smaller than females
    • Females usually lighter in color
  • Similar species:
    • 
• Natural History:
  • Habitat:
    • Particularily abundant in sandy areas
  • Behavior:
    • Becomes active at twilight, foraging most of the night
    • Daylight is spent hiding, often making it's own burrows
  • Breeding:
    • Breeding occurs from March to May, depending on the arrival of warm heavy rains
    • Breeding occurs in shallow pools, ditches, cypress and flatwoods ponds, etc.
    • Eggs laid in shallow water in two long strings containing about 3,000 eggs
• Voice: Sonogram - Call ( Terrell, Randolph, Tattnall, & Irwin Counties )
  • Shrill, musical trill, duration about 2 - 8 seconds
  • Call is about a octive higher than American Toad and more harsh
  • Trill rate about 75 per second.
  • Round vocal sac
    
• Tadpoles:
  • Tadpole stage: 30 - 60 days
  • Transformed Size: 7 - 10 mm
  • 
  • LTRF 2/3; P-3 long, P-2/P-3 < 2.0; dorsum of tail muscle uniformly pale or dark, rarely broken with contrasting areas but never banded, even in preserved specimens
  •  
  • body dorsum uniformly dark with golden lines (in life) of iridophores extending diagonally backwards from below eye toward midline (less visible at night); lower white part of bicolored tail ca. 20-25% of basal muscle height; snout long, about 3 eye diameters in distance from front of eye to tip of snout; length of one side of A-2/width of medial gap > 5.0; P-2/P-3 ca. 1.3; spiracle below longitudinal axis; usually temporary and but also permanent lentic sites or slow areas of lotic sites in Coastal Plain from Mississippi River to southeastern Virginia
• Range:
  • Coastal plain from extreme southeast Virginia to Mississippi river; south throughout Florida; isolated population in extreme western South Carolina
  • In Georgia, Bufo terrestris is found in the southern part of the state, below the fall line.

    

  • In Light Blue: Williamson, Gerald K. & Moulis, Robert A., Distribution of Amphibians and Reptiles in Georgia, Special Publication No. 3, Savannah Science Museum, Inc. Savannah, Georgia, 1994
  • In Green: Sound Recordings
  • In Yellow: From Both '94 study and Sound Recordings
  • In Magenta: Photograph, not found by '94, may or may not be sound record
  • In Medium Blue: Photograph and in '94 study, may or may not be sound record 
  • In Orange: County Record by other Herp Atlas Volunteers
  • In Red: US Distribution from various sources

September 9, 2006 - wwknapp@mindspring.com