barito bajada
← field guide

Amphibians

Monsoon-only — buried for months, then loud after rain.

Key

Monsoon — surfaces with the summer rains
Nocturnal — out after dark
Water-bound — needs a rain pool or tank to breed
Mostly hidden — buried underground most of the year
Harmless — a mild skin irritant at most
Seldom — keep an eye out
Elusive — you may never see one
A sighting is an event — if you see one, it's a story

subtitle = binomial (scientific name)

Toads & Spadefoots

Red-spotted toad

Red-spotted toad

Anaxyrus punctatus

It drinks through a patch of belly skin, not its mouth, and needs no pond — banking water in its bladder and breeding only when a monsoon storm fills a rock pool.

Couch's spadefoot

Couch's spadefoot

Scaphiopus couchii

Buried 8 to 10 months, it drinks from soil drier than itself by loading up on urea, then breeds the first night a monsoon pool fills. Not a true toad — the cat-eye pupil gives it away.