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Project Noah Nature School
Bufo fowleri
Found these strings of eggs in a shallow puddle during spring. 1cm diameter string with hundreds of dark brown 3/4cm eggs spaced a few mm apart. As the eggs developed small golden flecks appeared. Once hatched the tadpoles began as very dark brown >1cm. As they developed they became a light tan with brown speckles, visible intestines until forearms began to develop. Developed toads were 1/2cm in diameter.
Shallow puddle in a gravel bed.
I rescued these eggs from the puddle as the wet/dry cycle during our springs are variable. These weren't the first sets of eggs I had noticed in this same puddle. Many times the puddle would dry out and the eggs would die. I took pity on these guys, took them home, and hatched/released them. They took about 3 weeks to hatch into tadpoles at which point I fed them frozen shredded spinach for about a month until they completely developed. As they developed I lowered the water level and they appeared to become small toads. I attempted to feed them fruit flies for a week and decided to release them at a local creek near where the eggs were rescued.
Spotted on Apr 1, 2010
Submitted on Dec 8, 2012
2 Comments
Thank you AshleyT. I have a special place in my heart for all amphibians and could not stand by and watch these guys dry out and turn into pigeon food. I would have loved to have kept them to adulthood but my skills in caring for such small critters is very limited. After losing a couple young I felt the fruit flies were not enough or perhaps even too big for them to track and feed on so the creek bed seemed like the more natural answer. I hope I gave mother nature a little hand and at least one of these lil guys made it to full adulthood to breed again in the wild.
That's awesome you were able to save them, grow them up, then release them again :)