sczlogover.gif (3787 bytes)

© Sedgwick County Zoo, credit: Brent Ward

Puerto Rican Crested Toad

Peltophryne lemur

Physical Characteristics

  • These toads have textured, pebbled skin and striking marbled golden eyes. The males are olive green and gold, and the females are dull brown. The females also have rougher skin and a high crest above the eyes.
  • Size of average adult
    • length: male = 3 inches, female = 4 inches

Diet

  • Wild: insects, worms, insect larvae and other invertebrates

Behavior

  • Nocturnal (active at night)
  • Reproduction:
    • heavy rains prompt breeding
    • females lay as many as 15,000 eggs in long, black strands
    • eggs hatch into toadlets in 18 days
    • toadlets clump together to save body moisture as they move away from breeding ponds
    • due to loss of breeding ponds the northern population only has been observed breeding in walk-in concrete cattle troughs

Environmental/Global

  • Habitat: drier, semi-arid regions, rocky limestone areas rain pools for breeding
  • Distribution: Puerto Rico (only native toad species)- NW and SW coasts (once ranged over entire island at lower elevation)
  • Numbers:
    • wild: few hundred (difficult to estimate)
    • captive: 150 toads
  • Status: Threatened
    • habitat loss: dense human populations
    • competition: proliferation of giant marine toad introduced in the 1920's to control sugar cane grubs, compete with toad for food, habitat and spawning sites

Conservation Efforts

  • Thought to be extinct until 1967
  • 6 captured for captive breeding program in 1982 with release of toadlets & tadpoles
  • First amphibian SSP program
  • Search for areas for more natural or man-made ponds into which captive-bred can be released or wild can be transferred

Research and Investigation Programs

  • Genetic research into the difference between northern & southern populations of wild toads
  • Development of permanent marking system for identifying individuals
  • Prevention of disease
  • Calcium absorption by toads
  • Metro Toronto Zoo developed for distribution a Spanish language poster

Click here to visit the American Zoo and Aquarium Association (AZA). Click here to visit Sedgwick County, Kansas. COPYRIGHT 2004 Sedgwick County Zoo all rights reserved. No part of this website may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any electrical, mechanical, photocopying, recording means or otherwise without prior written permission of the photographer or author. Unless marked otherwise, materials are from the Sedgwick County Zoo. Sedgwick County Zoo is accredited by the American Zoo and Aquarium Association (AZA).