Common midwife toad

This toad eats bugs, worms and snails.

Midwife toads hunt small animals without backbones: moths, earthworms, snails, ants, beetles and others. They are most active in the evening, soon after sunset.

Their tadpoles grow up in all sorts of water, from puddles in wheel ruts and small pools to ponds and bigger lakes, but not in fast streams or in water with many fish. The tadpoles probably eat both tiny bits of plants and tiny animals.

RAVON: diet of moths, earthworms, snails, ants, beetles and other invertebrates; larvae probably take both animal and plant material; most active shortly after sunset. BfN: larvae use sunny to half-shaded waters of every size, from temporary wheel ruts and small pools to ponds and larger still waters, but avoid fast-flowing and very acidic water, and high fish densities prevent colonisation. The IUCN assessment gives no diet details.

This toad's call sounds like a tiny bell.

Moms and dads can both call.

Midwife toads call with a short, clear, whistling note, most of all in the evening and at night. From far away, a group of calling toads sounds like little bells ringing, and one of its German names means 'bell frog'. Females can call as well as males.

In the Netherlands, calls can be heard from late March or April until August. They hide in damp cracks in rock, in tunnels or in soft soil they can dig into.

BfN: a bright call reminiscent of a small glass bell, mostly in the evening and at night in the breeding season, produced by both males and females; from a distance a calling group sounds like bells, hence the German name 'Glockenfrosch'. RAVON: a short, melodious, whistling call, heard from late March or early April to August in the Netherlands, mostly in the evening and at night but also on warm days; overwintering recorded in limestone quarries, lime kilns and buildings. BfN: needs damp shelters such as fissures, crevices or tunnels in rock or diggable soil.

Some of the ponds where these toads breed are gone.

People protect the toads and their homes.

The common midwife toad is listed as Least Concern because it lives over a wide area and is still common in many places, such as much of France. But its numbers are going down. Farming has destroyed some of its homes and breeding ponds, a fungus disease called chytrid has made it disappear from some places in Spain, and fish brought into ponds from elsewhere eat it.

It is protected by European law, and Germany's national Red List (2020) lists it as strongly endangered.

Least Concern (Salvador et al.; Global and Europe; assessed 20 February 2023, published 2024; trend decreasing; also LC for the EU 27). Threats: habitat loss mainly from agricultural development, including breeding sites; fragmentation in Spain and Portugal; chytridiomycosis (local extinctions in Spain, and in protected areas of central Spain for A. o. pertinax) and other diseases; introduced predatory fish (Lepomis gibbosus, salmonids). Subpopulations in coastal Portugal west of Lisbon are extinct. Berne Convention Appendix II, EU Habitats Directive Annex IV, national protection in many range states (IUCN). National Red Lists: Germany 2, 'strongly endangered' (2020, via BfN); Netherlands 'Vulnerable' (2023, RAVON).