Bufo quercicus- The Oak Toad

On a recent field trip to Dixie Plantation, our lab class had the privilege of finding an Oak Toad, Bufo quercicus.

















This anura species, found in the family Bufonidae, ranges from the coastal plains of SE Virginia down throughout Florida and west to the Southeastern tip of Louisiana. The frog is typically 1.9-3.3 cms with a grey-black base color. A prominent characteristic of the Oak Toad is the light mid-dorsal stripe that extends down its back. They sometimes also have orange on the underside of their feet and their warts are a shade of orange, red, or brown. These toads have 4-5 pairs of spots on their backs that vary between black and brown.

The Oak toad is one of the more active toads during the day, which provides evidence to the reason we were able to find one so readily during the field trip. Although they are active during the day, they tend to hid under various objects. They are a prominent species of the common southern pine forests we have here.

Oak Toads prefer breeding grounds close to bodies of water, such as near shallow pools or ditches, as reproduction is aquatic. The eggs are then laid in the water attached to some sort of underwater vegetation and later become tadpoles through metamorphosis. They are insectivores as both adults and juveniles, simply feeding on different families of insects at each stage. To avoid predation they use the Unken reflex by inflating their bodies and excreting poison from its poison glands.

In finding this little frog in the field, I though it was much more interesting to see it in real life and encounter its behavior first hand. The frog was much smaller than I had anticipated for some unknown reason, yet the mid-dorsal strip was very clearly defined. We had some trouble distinguishing it from the Southern toad, yet soon discovered that it lacks the cranial crests. It was a cute little Anura, but then again they all are.