What Do Toads Eat?

The cane toad is an opportunistic feeder. Its diet includes insects (beetles, ants, crickets, winged termites, bugs, and honey bees), small toads, frogs, marine snails, small snakes, and small mammals.

• The cane toad can either be grey, olive-brown, red-brown or yellow. Their bellies tend to be pale.
• They are commonly found in a vast range of habitats such as rain forest margins, dunes, mangroves, coastal heath, open clearings, woodland, grassland, and urban areas.

Adult members of American toads feed on earthworms and a vast range of insects including ants, beetles, and moths. Tadpoles feed on aquatic organic material, dead fish, other tadpoles, and detritus.

• This toad is native to the Nearctic region.
• The American toad takes up a brown or gray coloration.
• The members of this species have short legs, a stout body, noticeable warts, and a thick body.
• They are commonly found in habitat regions that constitute of terrestrial lands next to a freshwater source (rivers, streams, or lakes), chaparral, mountains, scrub forest, rain forest, marsh, and swamps.

The common toad’s diet includes harvest mice, small grass snakes, slugs, spiders, worms, and insect larvae.

• The common toad has varied coloration ranging from grey, olive-green, dark brown, or they can be sandy colored.
• This toad inhabits areas next to deep water bodies such as ponds, and other kinds of water reservoirs.
• This habitat is essential for them when it comes to breeding.

Adult members of this species consume insects, spiders, snails, worms, and woodlice. Tadpoles of this species feed on algae.

• The natterjack toad is found in small numbers in Scotland and Ireland.
• It grows to a length of about 6-8cm and weight of between 4-19g.
• This toad commonly inhabits coastal regions, heathland, and moorland.
• It can also be found in deserts, grassland, inland wetlands, terrestrial lands, and shrubland.

Different techniques come in handy during hunting.

• One strategy toads use the sit-and-wait approach. In this technique, the toad tactfully positions itself and waits next to vegetation using it as cover for unsuspecting prey.
• When the prey comes close to it, it uses its sticky tongue to capture and consume it.
• For the toad species without a sticky tongue, they use the force of their jaws to ambush their prey.

Toads are mostly nocturnal creatures. This means they will tend to find food and eat in the dark of the night.

How often toads eat depend on different factors, one being the weather conditions.

• During winter (harsh cold temperatures), toads record reduced metabolism, so they stop eating and go into hibernation mode throughout the cold period.
• As the weather becomes warmer, they become active, and their metabolism increases. Because of this, toads begin feeding more frequently.

Toads produce toxins which ward off predators.

• However, some have resistance to these toxins and thus consider toads to be a vital delicacy.
• Examples of organisms that predate on adult toads include raccoons, some snake species, Hawks, and Herons.
• Tadpoles and toad eggs are consumed by different kinds of fish and diving bugs and beetles.

Toads play an essential role in the animal food chain.

• They feed on a vast range of organisms, thus regulating their local population.
• Toads are a good source of nutrition for creatures like birds, snakes, and mammals, thus promoting their survival.