Common toads (Bufo bufo) are frequent on our campus and one or two have a home in the tropical greenhouse. They are fairly shy creatures that tend to hide under objects during the day and come out at night. The toad pictured here was found under a flower pot and is remarkably well camouflaged.
Toads eat just about anything small that moves including slugs, beetles and earthworms. We hope our resident toads will keep slugs at bay. When watering the newly planted displays the toad walked out of its hiding place to see what was going on.
With a small population of toads we hope to avoid slug damage in this damp greenhouse.