Adult Plains Spadefoot are gray or brown with darker mottling on the back and white on the belly. The back may be covered with smallish tubercles tipped in yellow or orange, and often present as a rough hourglass-shaped marking. Some individuals have indistinct longitudinal streaking. In adults the pupils are vertically elongate in bright light; there is a hard lump or "boss" between the eyes, slightly anterior of an imaginary midline connecting the eyes. Prominent parotoid glands posterior to the eyes are absent. A single hard and dark wedge-shaped spade is present on each hind foot.
Ten Facts about Plains Spadefoot
- Maximum snout-vent length (SVL) is about 6.0 centimeters.
- They spend most of the dryer seasons buried in the soil in estivation, typically only emerging during spring and fall rains.
- Males call during breeding season to attract females. Their call is short and sounds somewhat like a duck.
- Spadefoots eat a variety of invertebrates such as ants and beetles.
- Breeding generally occurs in May (but as late as July) in temporary ponds when spadefoots emerge after heavy rains.
- Once breeding occurs, the eggs are laid in clusters of 10-250 attached to vegetation.
- Within two days, the eggs have hatched.
- Many plains spadefoots are killed on roads as they migrate to breeding ponds.
- Snakes are prime predators.
- Range: Alberta to Manitoba and south through Great Plains.
