Few people love amphibians: it's good if a frog or a toad is simply bypassed, but often they try to harm an animal! Unmotivated aggression on the part of a person can only be explained by his narrow-mindedness - it is strange to want to offend such an animal as a ground toad, if you know at least a little about him.
An amphibian with a bad reputation
Dislike for toads goes through generations. Even in the Middle Ages, these animals were treated with special contempt and fear. In all civilized countries, it was believed that touching a toad is certain death. Moreover, the cause of death was allegedly the poison secreted by the toad through the skin.
Also, her deceit and danger to our ancestors was that a person could become a kind of incubator for them. They explained it this way: with bad or untreated water, you can drink toad eggs, and already in the stomach they will hatch safely and begin active life. For a modern person, this sounds crazy, but before this condition was treated very actively.
Science has proven that a toad poses no danger to humans. Yes, in the event of an extreme situation for itself, the ground toad can release a special protective secret from the skin, but it rather performsdeterrent role and will not cause any harm.
Toad or frog: how to tell?
For many people, it is a fundamental question: who exactly did they meet, a frog or a toad? And although neither one nor the other poses a danger, it is not difficult to distinguish between them.
- The toad is larger in size: an adult can reach 15 centimeters in length.
- The body of the toad is loose, the contours are not clearly defined. Head quite low to the ground.
- Skin can vary from earthy gray to dark green. It has a large number of warts, tubercles and glands.
- A toad, unlike a frog, cannot jump. She confidently goes to the goal.
Most often people meet amphibians on vacation near water bodies or in yards where there is a constant source of moisture. So, the ground toad usually feels great in the garden - it is there that summer residents often meet her and are unreasonably frightened.
Life and habits
Like other amphibians, toads hibernate when temperatures drop. So that no one disturbs the process of waiting for heat, they burrow into the soil to a depth of 10 centimeters, hide under the rhizomes of trees and stumps, and can even use abandoned rodent burrows.
In the warm season, toad activity occurs at night. At this time, they go out in search of food: you can often meet a toad in summer evenings in places lit by lanterns.
Prettyinteresting is the answer to the question of how earthen toads breed. First of all, these animals cannot do this without water: it is in the reservoir that they spawn.
Toad caviar has a special appearance - it resembles a long thin cord. Such cords lie on the bottom of the reservoir or can be braided around algae. Sometimes the length of such cords reaches 5-8 meters!
The tadpoles that emerge from the eggs do not appear on the surface at first. They live at the bottom, eating small algae and what is left of dying animals and plants. Tadpoles develop quite quickly, and after 50-60 days a full-fledged green or ground toad may appear on land.
Fear or help for the gardener?
What to do if you suddenly met an earthen toad in the garden or in the garden? Is it possible to touch it, will it spoil the crop? Or maybe he will bring friends and there will be nowhere to hide from the toads?
In order to answer the question of what toads do in the garden or garden, you need to find out what earthen toads eat.
The main food for them are insects. They do not disdain caterpillars, various centipedes, as well as snails. A toad cannot be frightened by bright colors or an unusual type of insect. Seeing the object for breakfast, the toad waddles towards its target.
What is the benefit for the grower? The most direct! Ground toad is a great organic way to control pests and crop eaters. She is such a nurse of the crops, who in the evenings goes out to bypass the entrustedterritory.
Therefore, having met this amphibian on your way or in the garden, you don’t need to be like medieval Europeans and run for an “anti-toad” antidote or pesticide. Do not hit the animal and do not stomp on it: give way, because it goes about its important business, performing its natural function. And the side effect of it is the benefit to humans.
