Range

The native range of the cane toad is across South and Central America. Their range starts in the far South of Texas, USA and runs down through Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, Suriname, French Guiana, Brazil, Bolivia and Peru.

They are highly invasive and have been introduced to a number of islands in the Caribbean and throughout the Pacific Ocean including Papua New Guinea and the Philippines. They were also introduced to Hawaii.

Their most high profile introduction was to Australia in 1935 in an attempt to control pests which ate sugar cane. Since their release in Queensland they have spread South to New South Wales and West through the Northern Territory and in to Western Australia.

Habitat

Cane toads are highly adaptable and due to this can survive in almost any habitat. They are found in sand dunes, coastal heath, rainforest, mangroves, grassland, woodland and urban areas.

They are reliant on water for their survival and as such their habitat needs to be near a source of moisture such as a river or moist sand.

Reproduction

While the cane toad is capable of breeding during any part of the year but there is typically a peak after periods of rain.

Males will make their call by the water’s edge in the dark and wait for females to approach the water where they can mate with them. The eggs are released by the female on to plants or debris in the water and fertilized externally by the male.

They are capable of increasing their population rapidly as a single female can lay up to 20,000 eggs in a single clutch. It takes just 2-3 days for these eggs to hatch. Infant mortality is high with as little as 0.5% of hatchlings surviving to adulthood in some areas.

Tadpoles may be preyed upon by insects, turtles and snakes. Some of these animals have shown a tolerance to small amounts of toad poison.

Toads begin their life as a tadpole which lives solely in the water and resembles a small fish with a long tail. These tadpoles are entirely black. If conditions are ideal for their development the tadpoles will metamorphose in to adult toads within a month.

Sexual maturity is achieved by one year old in most of their natural range though in colder regions this can be delayed to 2 years.