Frogs and Toads

6th April 2001    Back to Home Page

The Common Frog – Rana Temporaria

Some tiny frogs –

Some adult frogs –

The common frog varies enormously in colour.   Some are highly marked, often with attractive spots or blotches, while others are scarcely marked.  The basic colour can be brownish, yellowish, or even reddish.  An often present feature is the stripe that includes the eye, a common device in camouflage to disguise the one part of any animal that must be black – the pupil of the eye.  Early in the season the frogs are usually rather drab in colour, but they brighten up as the weather warms up.  The iris of the frog’s eye is dusted with gold.

Prior to the spawning period, frogs may gather in large numbers in a pond.  When a male frog finds a female frog, he will attempt to grasp her around the neck.  If he succeeds, he will stay in position until the spawning time, repelling all comers.  Frogs, however, are very  determined, and it is not uncommon to find a female frog with a male on top and a male underneath.  Sometimes a female is killed by these attentions.  Male frogs will also grasp toads if they cannot get a female frog.  They will even grasp your goldfish.  This is bad news for the fish.

The actual spawning usually spreads over a number of days, with most of the frogs producing spawn during a peak period spanning a few days.  But a few frogs may spawn well before or well after the majority.

After the spawn has been produced, the frogs have little to do but loaf rather smugly in the pond, as if they know that life will require nothing of them for almost another year.  Many frogs leave the pond, but a some will stay much longer as residents.

Tiny green frogs in Yoshikien, Nara, Japan

Take a look at the Froggy Page and Pay a visit to Froggyville

The Common Toad – Bufo bufo

The difference between frogs and toads is rather like the difference between butterflies and moths, or between jam and marmalade.  The common frog and the common toad are two animals that most people could distinguish.  Their difference in perceived and imagined character is well shown in legends, in stories, and in even in greetings cards, jewellery and ornaments.  Very few cards depict a toad, but the frog is in the small group of animals that is quite well represented.  Not counting Christmas cards, it is reasonably easy to to find cards depicting ducks, swans, geese and several other birds, and also a number of mammals.  Reptiles and amphibians are hardly ever found on cards, except of course the common frog.  The poor old toad figures not at all.

Yet the toad is not altogether friendless.  Many gardeners know the toad as an ally, and during the spring, several areas have signs warning drivers of toads crossing roads to reach the ponds that they need for breeding.  Some roads even have tunnels to aid the safe migration of the swarms.

The toad is well represented in myths and legends, so it must, like the frog, have a definite resonance for people.  The relationship between frog and toad is not entirely unlike that of goose and swan.  Geese  And what about lizard and snake?

This difference of perception is presumably based on the differences in behaviour.  The frog hops about, while the toad crawls.  The frog escapes by jumping, while the toad may stand its ground and raise its body high off the ground.  And of course the toad is distasteful.  It is also seen much less often.  The frog may stay around a pond for weeks, while the toad disappears very soon after spawning.

All these remarks apply, of course, to Europe.  Other cultures have other species and other beliefs.

A tiny toad –  Little toads have beautiful and subtle colours, and golden eyes.

Some adult toads –

The next toad is a Natterjack Toad, Bufo calamita, photographed in 1972 at the CERN laboratory at Meyrin, near Geneva.  Building works left depressions in the ground, forming small ponds, which rapidly became colonized with many forms of aquatic and semi-aquatic life.

The big frog is one of the series "Raku Creatures" by John Hine.  Raku ware was created by Chorjiro Raku, a Korean potter, and his assistants.

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