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Exploring natural history one itsy bitsy spider at a time...

Exploring natural history one itsy bitsy spider at a time...

Thursday, November 8, 2012

American Toad

Anaxyrus americanus
Spotted on November 2nd hopping across a hiking trail in slow motion!
Poor little thing must have been freezing!
York, PA

http://amphibiaweb.org: 
 J. Torpor (Hibernation).  During cold winter weather, American toads hibernate terrestrially (Miller, 1909b).  They dig backwards into the soil where they reside or find another hibernation site that permits them to burrow below the frostline (Wright and Wright, 1949; Tester et al., 1965; Ewert, 1969).  American toads are not freeze tolerant (Miller, 1909b; Storey and Storey, 1986) and evidently have no mechanism for freeze tolerance (Holzwart and Hall, 1984).  Hibernation begins as the temperature falls below their normal activity minimum of about 9 ˚C, which is usually October in northern U.S. populations (Oldfield and Moriarty, 1994). 

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