#spadefoot

Eastern Spadefoot (Scaphiopus holbrooki), family Scaphiopodidae, Alabama, USA

Tadpole season.

Western Spadefoot (Spea hammondii)

If it (kinda) looks like a peanut, is the size of a peanut, and smells like a peanut, it must be… a western spadefoot. Western spadefoots really are about peanut-sized, about 1.5 - 2.5 inches long. Plus, they do actually smell like a peanut too. At least to some people. They secrete an irritant from their skin to deter predators that, by some accounts, smells like peanuts. While it may smell tasty, it’s not a good idea to put this peanut-like frog near (or in!) your mouth. To grow peanuts, growers start with raw, uncooked peanuts and bury them in the soil. Western spadefoots bury themselves in the soil too. They use the hardened spade-like appendages on their hind feet to dig themselves into the ground. They stay there for most of the year and emerge for only short times, usually around late fall and into the early spring, and it’s highly dependent on when it rains. These ‘lil peanuts inhabit parts of central and southern California. Photo: © Tony Iwane, CC-BY-NC

I love them tho especially the droopy nosed one. Mopey little guy

Kikkers en Padden van Nederland

Frogs and toads of the Netherlands, poster I made back in november!

If the Sag Harbor School District fails to receive approval from voters on May 16th to acquire 4 acres of wooded lots on Marsden Street, the community urges the Village and/or Town officials to acquire the wooded lots for preservation, as they are some of the last wooded lots in the Historic District of the Village of Sag Harbor.

The Marsden site is a kettle hole, which is a natural basin created by glacial movements from approx. 20,000 years ago. This topographic depression currently absorbs great amounts of stormwater diverted from higher elevated areas around the village. If we lose this precious stormwater basin, we will experience newfound flood zones in neighboring properties.

There are many animal species we are concerned about that live within these wooded lots:

-North American Box Turtle -Eastern Spade Foot Toad -Northern Long Eared Bat -White Tailed Deer -Screech Owl -Great Horned Owl -Raccoon -Opossum

-Dragonflies (which are signs of a healthy ecosystem, especially water bodies)

and more!

Many healthy trees and plantlife currently reside on Marsden, pulling carbon from our air, and absorbing water from our ground:

-Black Oak -Black Cherry -Black Locust -Black Walnut -White Oak -White Poplar -One double trunk tree with a circumferance of 10 feet -Red Maple -Red Cedar -Scarlett Oak -Norway Maple -Script Lichen -Beard Lichen and many more.

Imagine revitalizing a former kettle hole into a pond (to complete the Long Pond Greenbelt), creating a serene pathway for the community and students of the neighboring school to use as a close-proximity connection to nature. The school could even use this preserved site for their science classes!

Couch’s Spadefoot (Scaphiopus couchii)

Family: Scaphiopodidae (Spadefoot Family)

IUCN Conservation Status: Least Concern

Found in dry grasslands and savannahs in northern Mexico and the southern USA, this small nocturnal frog inhabits an environment that is considerably drier than those typically favoured by amphibians. In order to the survive the dry season this species spends most of the year underground, using hard, spade-like ridges on its hind feet to dig backwards into loose soil to a depth of around 1m (about 3.3ft) before producing a moisture-retaining cocoon-like structure by shedding several layers of its own skin. Once this water-tight case has been produced the frog enters a dormant state in which its metabolism decreases drastically and all but its most essential bodily functions cease for months at a time. As the levels of rainfall increase during the spring the presence of moisture causes the spadefoot’s cocoon to break apart and ends the hibernation period, at which point males will crawl to the surface and immediately begin searching for sufficiently deep puddles created by the rain. Once he finds a suitable puddle a male will produce a loud, honking call (which I strongly suggest you look up, as it is both hilarious and adorable) and inflate a large pouch under his throat to attract a mate. As is true of almost all frogs the female Couch’s Spadefoot lays her eggs in water and conceals by attaching them to any available aquatic vegetation, but as this species lays its eggs in puddles the eggs and young must develop extremely quickly to ensure that they are able to survive on land before the puddles evaporate - the eggs hatch just 36 hours after being laid, and the young go from tadpoles to frogs and are already developed enough to reproduce after 30-40 days. Adults of this species remain active throughout the rainy spring and summer, seeking out suitable puddles to breed in and consuming large amounts of small insects to build up the fat reserves necessary to survive hibernation until next year’s rainy season.