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Not known for their jumping ability, toads waddle around on the forest floor slowly going about their business.
Originally a forest dweller, toads could once be found living in residential gardens and parks.
While their warty appearance and poison won’t help them win any popularity contests, the toad is known by various nicknames around the country, in some ways making it the most loved frog in Japan.
Toads only live in water prior to hatching and as a tadpole, making their way back to breeding ponds during the mating season.
The mating season varies greatly across the country.
On the flatlands of Honshu Island, toads mate in the middle of winter around February or early March.
At sundown, toads make their way back to the pond at which they were spawned.
Mating activity lasts for up to a week.
Male toads battle it out in freezing conditions for the right to mate.
Males latch onto the female’s back as soon as they comes out of the forest.
This behavior, called amplexus, prompts the female to lay eggs.
Only an extremely small ratio of the toad population is female, leaving male toads with no option but to fight over a single female.
In extreme cases, great hoards of males pileup on one another in what can best be described as a toad free for all.
Female toads awake from hibernation in a relatively weak state, so getting to the water’s edge with a male on their back is quite a slow affair.
The firmly latched-on males kick rival toads away with their hind legs to prevent any wrestling and help the female toads keep moving.
The younger, smaller males sometimes avoid land-based fighting, emerging from hibernation early to sit in the cold pond and wait for the slim chance that a female will come to the water.
Once the fighting has ceased, toads head back to the forest and go back into hibernation as if to recharge their battle weary bodies.
The following morning you might even find toads that have used up all their energy fighting and drowned in the pond.
The huge amount of eggs laid commonly exceeds the 10,000 mark.
The reality is, though, that only 50 or so of these eggs will ever develop into adults.
The amazing life of toads is still very much shrouded in mystery.
How is it that males know exactly when the females will emerge from hibernation and make their way to the breeding pond?
And how, in the pitch-blackness of the forest night, do they find their way their?
One theory is that they remember the smell of the pond they were spawned in.
Other observations suggest they wake from hibernation when the surface temperature reaches 6 degrees Celsius.
However, this doesn’t explain why toads mate on almost the same day every year even when there has been a warm winter.
Toads may very well have sensors that are yet to be discovered.
Humans do not have such refined sensors with which to measure the natural world.
However, humankind posses the power of analysis, one that goes beyond our natural limitations.
The protection of this diverse and beautiful earth through the analysis of nature is a mission that has been entrusted to humankind.