The Midwife Toad Alytes obstetricans in South Yorkshire

A small grey toad with dark speckles and dark eyes. Adults are very terrestrial, digging themselves in under stones, paving flags, rockeries and emerging at night to feed. Easily identified by a chiming call uttered by the male throughout the summer, giving rise to the alternative name of ‘Bell Toad’. Males carry eggs around their hind legs until tadpoles are ready to hatch into water (Whiteley, 1997).

Preamble: Dr E.F. Gilmour, director of the Doncaster Museum from 1952 to 1967, had amongst his wide interests in the Natural Sciences a keen curiosity for herpetology, and was a founder member of the newly formed British Herpetological Society. Thus, on the shelves outside Peter Skidmore’s office was a short run of BHS journals, some containing articles and field notes contributed by Gilmour. Articles by his friend Malcolm Smith (author of the New Naturalist (volume 20) on British Reptiles and Amphibians) were of particular interest being about Midwife Toads in England, detailing a local introduced colony (Smith, 1949 & 1950).

The Introduction: In 1947 five toads were introduced by Robert Brocklehurst into an old mature garden some two acres in extent at Woodsetts Grange, near Worksop. The garden, containing a well vegetated artificial pond 15’ x 15’ and a large rockery, was stocked with specimens from a colony established fifty years earlier in a walled garden on the Brocklehurst’s property in Bedford. A dozen well developed tadpoles from the Bedford colony were introduced into the pond in August 1948 and breeding was observed in 1949 and 1950, Smith (1950) noting that “on several occasions males carrying eggs were found buried in dry soil six inches below the surface”.

This local introduction and associated literature references were collated into ‘The history and distribution of reptiles and amphibians in south-east Yorkshire and the Doncaster district’ (Howes, 1973) and enquiring letters were sent to householders.  No new records were forthcoming and it seemed that the pond into which the tadpoles had been released had subsequently been filled in, so there the story remained.

The re-discovery: In 1985, Bill Ely of Rotherham Museum received enquiries from local residents in Woodsetts village concerning mysterious and persistent, nocturnal bell-like calls from local gardens. Investigations by Bill led to the re-discovery of the population (Ely, 1985) and a night-time visit was organised by Bill, the team including herpetologists from the Rotherham & Sorby Natural History societies, Bill, Derek Whiteley (Sheffield City Museum) and me (Doncaster Museum). No toads were seen though the  characteristic pinging calls were heard from beneath crazy paving slabs of a garden path in one property and the calls were identified from adjacent gardens. Regular surveys since have shown a distribution based on garden ponds south to Lindrick Common Side (Whiteley, 1997).

References:

Smith, M.A. (1949) The Midwife Toad (Alytes obstetricans) in England. British Journal of Herpetology 1 (3): 55-56.

Smith, M.A (1950) Further notes on the Midwife Toad (Alytes obstetricans) in England. British Journal of Herpetology 1 (4): 89-91.

Howes, C.A. (1973) The history and distribution of reptiles and amphibians in south-east Yorkshire and the Doncaster district. The Naturalist 98:121-132.

Ely, W. A. (1985) The Midwife toad in South Yorkshire. Sorby Record 23: 29-30.

Whiteley, D. (1997) Reptiles and Amphibians of the Sheffield Area and North Derbyshire. Sorby Record Special Series No. 11: p.19.