Research Grade Species #1180: Fowler's Toad
I'm not sure this has ever happened before, in the combined histories of Urban Nature Walk, iNaturalist, and this LiveJournal project. One of the Research Grade Species (that fell on a multiple of 5) was observed on an Urban Nature Walk. Even better, it was identified by Rosemary Mosco, who you may know as a nature cartoonist, and she is also a keen naturalist in her own right. She also identified Beech Drops, a parasitic plant that I was previously unaware of--maybe I'll write about that some other time. My favorite thing on Urban Nature Walks is when I get to listen to one of the people who showed up to walk, and it turns out they know stuff about nature that I didn't know yet. It's really why I started doing the project, I love being in a group of nature lovers in nature, all of us learning from one another.
Toads comprise a famly of mostly terrestrial frogs with usually dry skin covered in bumps and warts, many of which contain poison glands. Most are well-camouflaged as well as poisonous, good protection for a fairly slow-moving soft-bodied animal. They eat insects and other invertebrates, and in turn are eaten by foolhardy snakes and skunks and other predators willing to eat poison.
I was vaguely aware that Fowler's toads Anaxyrus fowleri were present in New England, but assumed that every toad I'd ever seen was an American toad Anaxyrus americanus. It turns out that both of these species look very similar to one another. It's actually a little difficult to find the differences between these species. The Fowler's toad is more likely to make use of a sandy habitat, even living on beaches. For some reason (according to Wikipedia), it's less likely to feed on earthworms than the American toad. We were in Allandale Woods, the largest Urban Wild property in Boston, a good distance away from any sandy beach. Physically they can be discerned by the relatively spotless belly of the Fowler's, and the tendency for the Fowlers to "have three or more wart-like bumps in each dark blotch on its back ... while the American Toad has only one or sometimes two bumps per blotch." (thanks Canadian herpetology dot ca)
I personally rely on my friends Mike and Andrea from the Hit Me With Your Nature Stick blog for my reptile and amphibian identifications. They not only confirmed our Fowler's not American ID, but added this was the first one they had ever seen in the City of Boston. The closest they'd seen before was 12 miles southeast of the city. I'm not sure what that means, but I do think when I find toads in the future I'm going to be looking more closely at their bellies and the spots on their back.
