Details
Duttaphrynus melanostictus
The Asian common toad is a nocturnal ground toad of the Indomalayan region, often encountered close to people. It lives alone and hunts small animals on the forest floor and around settlements.
Map: Ecoregions 2017 © RESOLVE (CC BY 4.0) · Natural Earth (PD)
It uses lowland woodland, fields, gardens, and damp edges of villages. Breeding draws it to temporary pools and ponds, but most of its life is spent on land.
Length is 5.5-9 cm and weight 20-80 g. It has a squat body, dry warty skin, and conspicuous poison glands behind the eyes, with brown to grey-brown upperparts.
Active at night, it shelters by day under leaves, stones, or shallow cover in soil. It usually walks in short steps rather than making long leaps, and may inflate its body when threatened.
A carnivore, it eats ants, beetles, moths, earthworms, and other small ground animals. It snaps prey up with a quick tongue and swallows it whole.
During rainy periods adults move to water, where males call to females. Eggs are laid in long strings, and tadpoles develop in shallow water.
It is listed as Least Concern. Its tolerance of modified habitats makes it familiar, though roads and pesticides can still affect local animals.
