Home » Visual & Performing Arts » Nature Sketches » The Hops and Jumps of it: Toads and Frogs

The Hops and Jumps of it: Toads and Frogs

© Renie Burghardt

Last summer, I had a welcome visitor in my vegetable garden. He was a chubby, brownish-gray fellow, with warts all over his back. I studied him and looked him up in my book, and decided he fit the description of an American Toad. I was glad to see him, naming him, Fred, and I hoped he would stay and patrol the garden, so I developed a relationship with him.

How do you develop a relationship with a toad? Well, you can bring him treats of dog food and shower him with gentle pats on his head. My toad loved liver and beef bits, and seemed to thrive on the pats, as he sat among the green zucchinis. The zucchini patch was a good place for a toad, and I hoped he was keen on squash bugs!

In the past, I used to see toads regularly, but then they seemed to have all but disappeared. The same thing happened with the frogs at the pond. However, this past summer they too seemed to have rebounded. Each time I went to the pond, literally hundreds of tiny frogs let out an "eeek, here's the giant again, " and jumped into the pond with a plop! I was delighted. So was the great blue heron that visits the pond regularly!

Frogs and toads are colorful, valuable and harmless inhabitants of forests, prairies, rivers, swamps and marshes, and together make up a group of amphibians called anurans. But, is there a difference between frogs and toads? Well, yes there are some basic differences, although scientifically, they are classed as the same.

Toads, of course, have dry, warty skin, while a frog's skin is smooth and moist. (And you won't get warts by touching a toad!) Toads have no teeth, while frogs have tiny teeth on both upper and lower jaws. Toads, with their shorter hind legs, hop, while frogs, with longer hind legs, jump. Toads are slow, easy going fellows; frogs are speedy ones. They are much more difficult to have a relationship with. However, my granddaughter, Nichole, is an expert at catching them, and tried to sneak a tiny one home with her to the city, a few years ago, in a suitcase!

Of course, both toads and frogs are amphibians, which means that they live two lives: the aquatic, tadpole stage and the terrestrial adult stage. There are approximately 4,000 species of toads and frogs in the world, some as large as nearly 14 inches and weighing five pounds, (Rana goliath frog of Africa,) and some as small as the tiny, half-inch long Cuban frog known only by its scientific name, Sminthillus limbalus.

The copyright of the article The Hops and Jumps of it: Toads and Frogs in Nature Sketches is owned by . Permission to republish The Hops and Jumps of it: Toads and Frogs in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.