This large toad was sitting right under our garage door Saturday night.

Toads have been almost nightly visitors since we moved into the new house. I think they find the driveway in front of the garage good hunting grounds because we almost always leave a light on all night. The light attracts bugs, and bugs suit toads’ appetite quite well. They are ambush hunters, so they just sit and wait. This one was pretty fat, so it must have ambushed quite a few bugs. And that’s OK with us.

I call it a toad, although frog would be equally accurate. All toads are frogs, but not all frogs are toads. Frogs tend to have slimy skin and they seldom venture too far from water. Toads have dry, warty-looking skin (sorry, fella), and can stand dry conditions longer than frogs. We have almost no water around our driveway, so even without the characteristic dry skin, it would almost have to be a toad rather than a frog.

Toads are mostly nocturnal. I don’t remember ever seeing one during the day. You might wonder where a toad goes to sleep during the day. I know: shoes. At least sometimes.

Leah and I leave some shoes in the garage close to the door into the kitchen. Leah has one pair and I have four, each with its specific use. When I go out, I take off my slippers right outside the kitchen door and slip on one of my shoes. Once when I did that, I found that something was already using it. It was a toad about the size of this one. I figured out pretty quickly that my foot wouldn’t fit with the toad. The toad jumped out and disappeared into the clutter in our garage.

A few days ago I went out and put on my dog-walking shoes. I was getting ready to lace them up, but stopped because there seemed to be something in the shoe. I almost ignored it, because sometimes it’s just my sock acting up. This time I took the shoe back off and a little froggie jumped out. I can’t believe I didn’t crush it, but it hopped away, disappearing into the clutter just like the bigger frog. I can imagine their conversation. The little toad told about the monster that tried to crush him, and the big toad said, “I told you so!”

Our toads are probably the common Bufo [Anaxyrus] americanus. Here’s what the University of Georgia has to say:

Encountered infrequently during the summer, American toads are inactive during hot, dry periods and from late fall until breeding begins early in the year. They are most active at night, spending the day hiding in burrows or underneath logs, forest ground litter, or rocks. These toads show hiding spot fidelity, sometimes returning to the same location every day. During the non-breeding season, individuals have a home range of several hundred square feet, but adults may travel more than half a mile during the breeding period. Adult American toads eat a variety of small insects including ants, beetles, moths, and earthworms.

A little later on, the article mentions that fact that these toads produce a poison in their parotoid glands and skin, which means, don’t lick toads!

The cats have never shown even the slightest interest in the toads. Sam seems to ignore them, but Zoe wants to investigate. Fortunately, all she does is sniff them. I’m not sure whether something in the odor warns her off, or she just isn’t interested because their most usual defense from predators is to just sit still and let their poison protect them.