Spadefoot Toads are one of the strange things of the universe. They are true ephemera, appearing as if by magic after sudden thunderstorms, and staying above ground only a few days each year, just long enough to mate and lay eggs. With shining eyes more beautiful than the finest gold foil, Spadefoots are humble and harmless creatures, unless you are a very small ground-dweller. Spadefoots breed in desert streams and pools that usually dry up within a few short weeks. Their eggs hatch with astonishing rapidity--within a few hours. The fast-growing tadpoles are spooky. In each batch, some tadpoles are vegetarians, grazing upon algae and water plants. Others are carnivorous, and feed upon water insects, tiny fish--and especially their own brothers and sisters! The carnivorous tadpoles grow faster than the vegetarian tadpoles. If the water is drying up, or is so temporary that algae have not had a chance to grow, then the carnivorous tadpoles can live upon their own kind until they turn into little toadlets in six to twelve weeks, and hop away. This bizarre lifestyle works well in the chancy dry environments where Spadefoots live. When the toadlets emerge from the water, they hop off to a place where they can dig in soft earth, and bury themselves until a thunderstorm signals them to come out for mating, just as their parents did. There are several kinds of Spadefoot Toads in North America, and like many amphibians, they are in trouble, so foster them if you can. Spadefoots are found in the western Great Plains and in the West. This little fellow posing for Uncialle's camera is the Intermountain Spadefoot, Spea intermontana, the one that lives in Uncialle's gulch.
The arrow points to the hardened hind foot "spade" that the toad uses to help dig itself into hibernation/aestivation. Now, in early June, two of Uncialle's ponds still have Spadefoots calling at night, each toadly male singing hopefully for a mate to join him. "Rrrraaack! Rrrraaack!" they sing into the cool night of the gulch. Spady tadpoles swim languidly about in the water, their little brown eyes questing here and there for a morsel of food. Uncialle stocks the Spadefoot pools with large snails, and the carnivorous tadpoles eat far more snail eggs than siblings. Do the tadpoles dream of the day when their eyes will turn to gold? Do the adults, snug in their earthen chambers, dream of the thunder that will awaken them? Truly, there is no magic like the real magic of the earth.
To find out more about frogs and toads, visit The Froggy Page.
Surely there is still a place in the world for the creature with the golden eyes.
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