This week for Flora and Fauna Friday we’re getting acquainted with the dark sheep of the frogs, the Eastern Narrow-mouthed Toad (Gastrophryne carolinensis).
The Eastern Narrow-Mouthed Toad is found throughout South Carolina and in all but the highest elevations of the Southeast. It’s a resident of woodlands and savannas, where below abundant humidity and ample water make for a cozy home for this amphibian. Narrow-mouthed Toads are fossorial, living in the soil underneath fallen logs and leaf litter for most of their lives. Their pointed head and flattened bodies lets them push through soil and wedge beneath rocks and logs. This subterranean environment is far more stable than the surface world and allows them to better conserve water. Their namesake ‘narrow mouth’ defines their diet. They specialize in eating some of the tiniest, yet most abundant, of our insects, the ants and termites that are prolific in leaf litter and the soil.
Because Eastern Narrow-Mouthed Toads are subterranean, they are rarely seen. But that doesn’t mean they’re rare or hard to observe, quite the opposite. They’re a very common species and, during wet nights in spring and fall, they can be heard wailing along freshwater wetlands and down roadside ditches all across the Lowcountry. The male’s courtship croak is the unmistakable bleat of a lamb, albeit a bit more monotone, which lasts for two to four seconds. But good luck trying to spot one calling!
Eastern Narrow-mouthed Toads are just as secretive on the water as they are on land. But when you do chance upon one, most often when flipping rocks or rolling logs, they are an obvious sight. A plump little body just over an inch long on short legs and covered in subtle warts over moist skin, a tiny head with a pointed nose, and a brown-gray triangle on the back flanked by wide ruddy-tan stripes are features that give this toad a unique shape among all our other local frogs and toads. Speaking of frogs and toads, the Eastern Narrow-Mouthed Toad is really a frog, not a toad. Well, all toads are frogs, but not all frogs are toads. (Same situation as Turtles and Tortoises, rectangles and squares.) True Toads belong to the family Bufonidae, they have dry skin, obvious warts, poisonous parotoid glands behind their head, short legs for walking, and mainly live on land. However certain frogs, like the Eastern Narrow-Mouthed Toad, can check most of those boxes and so are commonly called toads. This similarity is a product of convergence, multiple lineages of life finding the same answers to the same problems.
