Description: Texas toads have a round body, with gray and green skin. Like most toads, they possess bumpy skin with warts, and have brown and yellow speckles on their dorsal side. These toads have small paratoid glands (located posterior to the eyes) that secrete a toxin. Males measure 2.0 to 3.1 inches and females 2.1 to 3.6 inches in snout-to-vent length.

Habitat: It is a desert species and is found in dry grassland, savannahs with scattered mesquite and open woodland, usually on sandy or frequently inundated soils.

Range: The Texas toad is native to the United States where it is found in the state of Texas (in 2009 it was designated as the Texas State Amphibian), its range also extends northward to Oklahoma, westward to New Mexico and southward to northern Mexico.

Found in these States: NM | OK | TX

Diet: The Texas toad feeds on insects such as beetles, ants and bugs.

Reproduction: Breeding occurs after heavy rains when male frogs congregate at temporary pools, ditches, cattle tanks and other wet places and call continuously, especially at night. The call is described as being a "series of explosive trills", each lasting for about one and a half seconds with intervals of one second. The females seem to be attracted to the largest males with the loudest calls. The eggs are laid in the water, often entangled in submerged vegetation. They hatch in two days and the tadpoles feed on algae growing on underwater plants. They may retreat to deeper water when disturbed. They spend between eighteen and sixty days as tadpoles depending on circumstances such as water temperature, after which time they undergo metamorphosis and leave the water as juvenile toads.

Status: The Texas toad has a wide range and a large total population and is one of the most common toads in the southern United States. It is tolerant of changes in its habitat and is present in cultivated areas as well as grasslands and savannahs.

Taxonomy: