New digs for the spadefoot toad
Tuesday, November 18, 2014 - 08:20
in Biology & Nature
A plump Eastern spadefoot toad sits placidly in a patch of meadow on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Nearby, researchers Rachel Jania and Bryan Windmiller are house hunting for it, trying to figure out if the meadow might make a good home for the rare toad, whose habitats have been devoured by development. They wait to see whether the full-grown male, weighing less than one ounce, will burrow underground, where spadefoots spend much of their lives, emerging only to mate.