Comments on: Tiny Eastern American Toads

By: Anita

Anita — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 17:10:51 +0000

Sorry for both comments. I didn’t think the first one printed so I submitted another one. Thanks for reading them both though! :)

By: Anita

Anita — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 17:06:14 +0000

I was glad to find this site because I was curious about these little fellas. I live in Florida and it’s now the end of June. About 2 weeks ago these tiny toads showed up. They seem to love my backyard mostly, it’s very shady and we’ve had a lot of rain and humidity. We’ve lived in this house for about 4 years and I’ve never seen them before. About 3 years ago we did have hundreds of juvenile toads hopping about, but at least they were bigger and easier to avoid stepping on! I find that if I shuffle my feet and walk real slow, the movement starts the little guys hopping out of the way; and yes it does make mowing the lawn a very cautious task. I’m not worried as much about stepping on them as I am about all the lizards we have around eating them! I’m not sure if they do, but I was also wondering if anyone can remember how long the baby toads stay about?

By: Anita

Anita — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 16:41:41 +0000

I was happy to find this search. It’s the end of June here in Florida and about 2 weeks ago, these tiny creatures appeared! They range in color from brown to red, but most are almost black. Our backyard is very shady and the toads seem to love it there. We’ve had an abundance of rain and it’s very humid, perhaps that’s why they are thriving? It does make mowing the lawn difficult, not to mention just walking in the backyard! I find that if I shuffle my feet a bit, the movement starts the toads hopping out of my way; but you do have to walk slowly. They are as pictured, very small and can only hop so far, but they are amazingly fast! I do remember about 3 years ago in the backyard we had a plethora of juvenile toads hopping about, and thought that to be strange. They stayed for a while and then as soon as they appeared they were gone. I was wondering how long might these baby ones stay; and also if the lizards we have everywhere might eat them? Anyone?

By: Shirley

Shirley — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 14:14:16 +0000

Kim, the only thing I can suggest is to pick them up and take them away from your area. You mentioned using an instrument so I’m assuming you don’t want to touch the toads with your hands, but could you put on a pair of latex gloves to pick them up with? Then once your walkout is toad-free, could you block the stairs with a board (or something similar you can easily move) so they can’t hop back in? Usually this number of toads don’t stay around for very long.

Maybe someone else will have a better idea.

By: Kim

Kim — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 15:44:51 +0000

I live in michigan and yesterday we had hundreds of baby toads surrounding our house. The problem is they are hopping down our stairs of our walk out basement and they can’t get back up

I try to collect them to move them but they jump off my my little instrument.

How do I get them out of my walkout???

By: Jo

Jo — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 23:02:54 +0000

When I was 5, in 1947, our family lived next to Lake Penneseewassee, in Norway, Maine.

Just after a Spring rainstorm my brother and I went outdoors and were soon calling to Mom, “Mom, mom! Come out and see! Toads!”

Just like the picture on this page, there must have been hundreds of the tiny creatures. We tried not to step on any as we took them down towards the lake so they wouldn’t get run over in the road.

I have never seen anything like it since but I will always remember when we thought it had rained toads.