A Guide to California's
Reptiles and Amphibians

Sounds of Bufo californicus - Arroyo Toad

(=Anaxyrus californicus)

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Click the play button or the speaker icon to listen to an mp3 sound file.

Male calling at night

Advertisement Calls

An advertisement call is the most well-known call of a toad. It is produced by a male during the breeding season to attract females of his own species. It can also serve an agressive function to defend his calling site by warning rival males of his presence. Toads usually make the calls around bodies of water that are suitable for breeding and egg laying. These calls can be heard during the evening and at night, and sometimes during daylight at the peak of the breeding season.

The advertisement call of the Arroyo Toad is a fast musical trill, about 10 seconds, rising in pitch, and ending abruptly. Males call at night from shallow pools of slow-moving streams. Calling is not dependant on rainfall. This call is similar to that of Bufo punctatus - Red-spotted Toad, but with a lower pitch.

This is a 2 minute and 10 second edited recording of a series of advertisement calls of a male Arroyo Toad calling at night in a riparian canyon on the desert slope of the San Bernardino Mountains in San Bernardino County (shown below.) The original calls were averaging 30 seconds apart. Here they have been cut to about 10 seconds apart, Running water, insects, and Pacific Treefrogs are heard in the background.

This is a 4 second recording of the advertisement call of a male Arroyo Toad calling at night in Santa Barbara County, recorded by Carlos Davidson and used here by permission.

This is a 50 second recording of a series of advertisement calls of a distant male Arroyo Toad calling at night in a riparian canyon in San Diego County (shown below.) Continous calls of crickets and of Pseudacris regilla - Pacific Treefrogs, and occasional calls of Pseudacris cadaverina - California Treefrogs, are heard in the foreground, while in the background are running water, the calls of a Common Poorwill, and the faint call of a Great Horned Owl near the end of the recording.

This is an 8 second recording of the advertisement call of a distant male Arroyo Toad calling at night in a riparian canyon in San Diego County (shown below.) Crickets and Pseudacris regilla - Pacific Treefrogs are heard in the foreground.

Waveform and Sonogram

This is a recording of one repetition of the advertisement call of an Arroyo Toad recorded at night in San Bernardino County. The image on the right is a visual representation of this call. Click on it to see a larger image. Click here for information about how to read the waveform and sonogram images.

Short Video

A male Arroyo Toad calls three times at night from the edge of a creek. The picture on the left shows the site in daylight. The video has been edited - the original calls were about a minute apart.

You can listen to more recordings of Arroyo Toads on this cd:

Carlos Davidson - Frog and Toad Calls of the Pacific Coast - Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology

and on the cd that comes with this book:

Lang Elliott, Carl Gerhardt, and Carlos Davidson - The Frogs and Toads of North America - Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

You can also listen to this toad at AmphibiaWeb.

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