According to the researcher, Silviu Petrovan at the University of Cambridge, bat surveyors have known this for years, but ARG folk do not. This is not strictly accurate as there is a photo by Barry Kemp in the SxARG Gallery that shows a frog contently sitting in a dormouse box.
The toad tree climbing was first reported by the People’s Trust for Endangered Species who had found toads in Dormouse boxes. Petrovan found that a few bat surveyors had kept records of their toad sightings in hollows in trees along with Blue tit sightings. They reported blue tits on 94 occasions and toads on 19 from 1400 tree surveys, suggesting that tree climbing is quite common. The highest recording was at 2.8m.
The question arises why would a toad expend energy climbing trees? Petrovan speculates they could be avoiding predators such as grass snakes or the attentions of the parasitic toad fly.
Reference: bioRxiv, DOI: 10.1101/2022.02.27.482211 Back to Homepage
The toad tree climbing was first reported by the People’s Trust for Endangered Species who had found toads in Dormouse boxes. Petrovan found that a few bat surveyors had kept records of their toad sightings in hollows in trees along with Blue tit sightings. They reported blue tits on 94 occasions and toads on 19 from 1400 tree surveys, suggesting that tree climbing is quite common. The highest recording was at 2.8m.
The question arises why would a toad expend energy climbing trees? Petrovan speculates they could be avoiding predators such as grass snakes or the attentions of the parasitic toad fly.
Reference: bioRxiv, DOI: 10.1101/2022.02.27.482211 Back to Homepage