2005 - Whitby Naturalists

GENERAL INFORMATION ON AMPHIBIA'
One specie of frog, tw6 spccies of toads and three of newts are native
tu moinland Britain. In addition, there are some colonies of water
frggs (edible and marsh frogs) in the Soutfi of Engiand, which were
introiluced cluring the iast ccntury. They are spreading slowly but I do
not expect to have reports t-'f them in Yorkshire for rnany years'
The cornmon frog (rma tempornria) ts classified as a "ttror.vn frog",
one of eight brown iiogs in Europc. Actually they are verry variable in
colour and grey, olivc, grcel, veltrow and white may be fould as well
as bri.rwn. They are often spcttted with dark pigment and their
undersides may be orange, yell6w or white. They usually hibernatc
and breed in water but spend much of thc rest of the year on dry land,
which is why they are ais6 ctrassificd as 'terrestrial frtlgs". They afe easy
to conf,rse with othcr species of brown frog but as nonc of the othcrs
arc narive to Britain I can safely log all repofts of frogs as fal1n
temporaria.
The cornmon road (bufo bufa) .If you only get a glimpse of the anirnal
it is easy to coufuse a ficig and a toad: rhey are about the same size and
rhe colouring lies within a similar rangc of variation. Points of
diffbrence to look for include the well knowr, knobbly or warty skin of
rhe toad. A toad's skin still /eels soft though. A toad's back legs are
slightly shorter than a fr6g's which causes it to walk more than hop
(akhough they can and do hop). Thcy hunt at nigirt and often spend
rire day hiding in