Great plains toad - Bufo cognatus

Size: 2 - 3 1/2 inches (5.1-9 cm)

Voice: A loud, harsh, pulsating trill with a metallic quality. Often lasts 20 seconds or more. Sausage-shaped vocal sac.

Identification: Skin coloration is gray, brown, or greenish. It has large blotches which have a strongly contrasting white border. The blotches contain several small warts. The chest is white with no speckles. Cranial ridges form a V, spreading apart from the snout. Parotoid glands are smaller than those of the American and Canadian toads.

Life stages: Females may produce up to 20,000 eggs which hatch in two days. Tadpoles emerge within six weeks.

Breeding habitat: Breeding activity is triggered by warm, heavy rains. Large numbers of toads may gather to breed in shallow temporary wetlands, flooded fields, or backwaters of streams and ditches.

Summer habitat: An accomplished burrower, this species may hide underground during the day or for extended periods of extreme heat or drought. Prefers wide open spaces, occupying grasslands and agricultural fields of western Minnesota.

Winter habitat: Subterranean, burrows below frost line.

Photo: ©A.B. Sheldon.