I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: summer is my favorite season, and the past few weekends have included seeing and hearing various frogs and toads. Earlier this month, I had the opportunity to go camping, and from evening into the morning, we were surrounded by the sounds of Eastern gray treefrogs calling. Their call has been said to sound like a red-bellied woodpecker, and the males use a loud, musical call to find a mate. While hiking and sliding down a muddy slope, I paused to admire a pickerel frog under some brush along the walking path. Pickerel frogs have two yellow lines down the side of their backs with parallel rectangular brown or black patches down the middle of their back. Finally, most recently, while strolling across the grass at a park, a toad jumped beside my foot, and its movement caught my attention.
Each time I come across a toad or a frog, these fun friends amaze me. Frogs and toads are amphibians, which means they are likely to be found near water. However, they can live in a range of habitats, including streams, lakes, ponds, ditches, and damp, wooded areas. They are nocturnal creatures and enjoy the night’s humidity to keep their skin moist. The anatomy of frogs and toads is unique, with the lifecycle from egg, tadpole, froglet, to frog. If you have ever seen tadpoles out in nature during the spring months, it is a neat sight. Tadpoles are one of nature’s best examples of unrealized potential!
Frogs and toads are the only members of Phylum Chordata, Class Amphibia, and Order Anura. While they vary in family classification, all frogs and toads share a few commonalities:
- Having sensitive skin
- Return to water for reproduction
- Eggs lack a hard shell
- Adults do not have a tail
Distinguishing frogs from toads
Toads are one type of frog, which means all toads are frogs, but not all frogs are toads. Frogs and toads typically blend into their environment with green and brown skin coloring among grass, trees, and branches, but their movement may draw your attention.
- Frogs have long and strong hind legs that help them leap far, often opting to jump into nearby water when startled. Hearing a small splash of movement can alert you to their presence if you hadn’t noticed their calls or chirps.
- Toads, on the other hand, have shorter hind legs and may sit still to wait it out before taking a smaller jump.
If you’re not sure how to tell if you’re looking at a toad or a frog out in the wild, here are a few differentiating features. Toads typically spend more time on land and travel a bit further away from a water-based habitat. Toads are also characterized as having thicker and bumpier skin compared to frogs. One interesting characteristic of toads is their parotoid glands, which produce poisonous secretions as an act of self-defense. This secreted substance can cause small animals to die, but usually only an allergic reaction in humans. All frogs do not have parotoid glands, but all toads do.
Amphibians are special creatures that we can see and hear in the natural world. If you’re hoping to see or hear frogs, check out local spots that have access to bodies of water in the evening. Warm, humid evenings or after it rains help create ideal conditions for them to be active. Moraine View State Park, Tipton Park, or other natural areas with a water source would be great places to explore in search of frogs and toads. The next time you see one, test your knowledge: is it a frog or a toad?
Check out Voice of the Wild to learn the sounds of frogs and other wildlife, or visit the Illinois Species Range Map to see where you can find wildlife species across our state.
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