Natterjack toad

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The natterjack toad is a small native toad of Britain and Ireland with a very patchy distribution. It lives mainly on sand dunes and heathland.

Description

The natterjack is a small, greenish-brown toad. A thin yellow stripe runs down the middle of its back in almost every individual and is the main identifying feature. Its skin is warty, with the warts tipped red, and its back legs are short.

Males are 50–65 mm long and females 60–75 mm. In the breeding season males have a bluish throat and give a loud, rattling "churr" that can be heard hundreds of metres away.

Distribution and habitat

The toad breeds in shallow slacks between sand dunes and in shallow sandy pools on heathland. A few populations live on upper saltmarshes, and one is found on open moorland in the fells of south Cumbria.

Its main strongholds are the dunes of Merseyside, Cumbria and the Scottish side of the Solway Firth, with smaller populations in Lincolnshire and Norfolk. It has been reintroduced to sites in North Wales and Kent. Native heathland populations remain only in Hampshire and Norfolk, and heathland reintroductions have taken place in Dorset, Surrey and Bedfordshire. In Ireland it occurs at dune sites in County Kerry, with one introduced population in County Wexford.

Behaviour and diet

Natterjacks are mostly nocturnal. By day they shelter in burrows that they dig in sand, and they hibernate in these burrows too. They feed on insects, particularly beetles, and tend to run rather than hop.

Breeding

Breeding usually takes place from early April to July, and a female may lay spawn more than once in a season. The spawn is laid as a single string holding up to 7,500 black eggs, and the tadpoles are jet black. Tadpoles need water at 17–27 °C, and their development into toadlets can take around a month. Newly formed toadlets are less than 10 mm long.

Conservation

The natterjack is listed on Schedule 5 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 and Appendix II of the Bern Convention, and is a UK Biodiversity Action Plan Priority Species. It is illegal to disturb it.

According to Inns, writing in 2019, the species declined sharply during the 20th century, particularly on heathland, and was then present at about 60 sites. The causes he gives are habitat loss, changes in the water table and acidification of breeding pools. Sites are managed by clearing scrub, grazing, digging shallow scrapes and correcting the pH of ponds.