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Pinched toes |
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Iowarth
Admin Group Joined: 12 Apr 2004 Status: Offline Points: 743 |
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Posted: 22 Apr 2013 at 8:47pm |
I have received a sighting report which I thought I would share with you all and get your thoughts. The report and picture are below:-
"This has been a thriving site for amphibians since I was a child and there are large numbers of frogs and toads of all life stages at different times of the year. There were newts in the late 80's but I have not seen any lately. The swamp like area is the reminence of an ancient loch system and is next to Balgavies and Rescobie Loch near Forfar it is surrounded by farmland and is next to the main Forfar to Arbroath road but goes virtually unnoticed due to it being in a hollow with dense plant cover in summer. We came upon hundreds of baby toads last summer around fox scat or some other animal feaces and some froglets also.Today we saw many breeding common toads and lots of frog spawn but the frogs themselves have moved on. The reason I looked up your site was to ask whether fresh water clams can be parasitic to toads, my son and I came across a breeding pair and the female had 2 small yellowish white clam like biovalve's on each back flipper attached to the toe I removed the clams. I have pictures as I felt this was something worth noting. Is this common?" Apparently this was the only toad - albeit one on each foot. I expressed the opinion that the toad had simply waved its toes enticingly through the clams' shell openings, looked/felt like food and CLAMP! But what to YOU think? Chris |
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Chris Davis, Site Administrator
Co-ordinator, Sand Lizard Captive Breeding Programme (RETIRED) |
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liamrussell
Senior Member Joined: 13 Jan 2005 Status: Offline Points: 100 |
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I've seen this a lot in newts. I always assumed they trod in the pea mussel and it closed in defence. A couple of ponds in particular seemed to have very high density of pea mussels and they would often turn up on newts' toes.
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GemmaJF
Admin Group Joined: 25 Jan 2003 Location: Essex Status: Offline Points: 4359 |
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That looks painful!
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Donny
Senior Member Joined: 11 May 2004 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 70 |
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I am sure I read about this exact thing in a natural history book years ago, as I recall it speculated that this might be a way for the clams to colonize new water bodies.
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