Toads

Last Review/Updated: May 30, 2002

Toads and frogs are sometimes difficult to tell apart. Both groups of animals are known as anurans, or the tail-less amphibians. To make things even more confusing, the term frog can correctly be used to describe both frogs and toads. And of course the so-called "horned toad" isn't even an amphibian — it's really a reptile, and properly should be called a "horned lizard."

True toads are those amphibians belonging to the Genus Bufo. Toads have a number of characteristic features:

  • "warty" skin
  • little webbing on hind feet
  • enlarged parotoid (poison) glands on the shoulders
  • prominent tubercles (knoblike projections) on their hind feet for digging in the soil
Hind foot

Diagram of a toad's hind foot
metatarsal tubercles
(bottom view)		 In Alberta, there are three true toads, the Canadian toad, the western (boreal) toad, and the great plains toad. In addition, there is one member of the Spadefoot family, the plains spadefoot. Spadefoots lack the enlarged parotoid gland and they are less "warty" than true toads.