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DIET OF THE SOUTHERN TOAD (BUFO TERRESTRIS) FROM THE SOUTHERN EVERGLADES
Citation:
MESHAKA, JR., W. E. AND A. L. MAYER. DIET OF THE SOUTHERN TOAD (BUFO TERRESTRIS) FROM THE SOUTHERN EVERGLADES. D.F. Martin (ed.), FLORIDA SCIENTIST. Florida Academy of Sciences, Orlando, FL, 68(4):261-266, (2005).
Description:
We examined the diet of a February-May sample of the southern toad (Bufo terrestris) from the Everglades National Park. Above the familial level, 13 taxa were consumed, but ants (Hymenoptera) and beetles (Coleoptera) were consumed most by, and in the greatest number of stomachs of, juveniles, males, and females. Its diet was similar to that of other southern Florida populations and to that of its close relative, the Fowler's toad (B. woodhousei fowleri). Ants and beetles were likewise important dietary components of several other syntopic species in the southern Everglades where B. terrestris was one of the few ant and beetle specialists. The impact of its absence from much of urban southern Florida can not be underestimated when explaining the success of a number of exotic amphibians and reptiles that to some degree exploit or rely on one or both of these food resources.