Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I was in my garden at the weekend checking out the common frogs(Rana temporaria) in my garden pond when I spotted a male common toad Bufo bufo in the water. This was a bit of a surprise
as there are no common toads in Ireland where I live apart from my captive ones of course. After racking my brain I remembered that last year I had two of them spawning in a tank on the patio and after spawning the two of them vanished. So that was the origin of the male. He had survived all year in my garden despite extensive landscaping and a garage extension being built. Then yesterday I was looking in again and lo and behold there was a female toad- obviously his partner from last spring.
the two are now in amplexus in the pond and I'm hopeful of some spawn any day now. The spawn produced last year didn't survive by the way.
Due to a cold spell for the last few weeks the frogs finally spawned about the 20th March despite having started at their usual time of about 17th Feb. That's why the frogs were in the water at the same time as my toads arrived. The toads were bang on time.

Hey, that's cool. We've got tons of wilderness and tons of anurans here in California, but I've never seen anything like that, and in your own backyard to boot.

reako45

You're not going to leave them in the wild are you? If they're not native to your area that's terribly irresponsible. Non-native species can really upset the ecosystem in an area. Australia has had a terrible time with introduced Bufo killing off their native herps. Please don't allow your animals to be released & certainly not to spawn!
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2.1 Corn snakes Snake Plissken, Jack Skellington & Abby
1.1 Hog Island Boas Harley & Isaboa
0.1 Albino Sonoran Gopher Snake Jasmine
1.3 leos, Yoda, Geo, Tang, Ginger
1.0 Blue Tongue Skink Indigo (Indy)
0.1 Pacman frog Buffy the Cricket Slayer
1.1.3 firebelly newts Wayne Newton, Isaac Newton, Fig Newton, Olivia Newton John & Thandie Newton
1.1 cats Gus & Mena

I'm probably not going to leave them in the wild though I have very mixed feelings about the whole non-native species debate. There is no comparison with australia and cane toads here. Bufos are not present in ireland (apart from a very localised population of Bufo calamita in south west Ireland)only because they did not make it here because of the ice age and were prevented from doing so due to rising sea levels. Irelands flora amd fauna is similar to the rest of northen europe but poorer for these reasons. Aside from that there is considerable opinion that there are no truly native species of amphibian in ireland and that all are historic introductions. If all the non native species of life were removed we'd be back to an island clothed in scots pine and birch from north to south, no rabbits, pheasants , dogs, cats, horses, cattle, sheep potatoes grain or non celtic humankind. The argument for keeping all ecosystems in a kind of snap shot stasis is as artificial to nature as mass introductions of truly exotic species and the clearing of rain forests in my book.