This little guy was pretty small - from memory, I'm guessing about 1-1/2 inches long, (+ or -).
I turned over a large flower pot tray that had a little bit broken away on one side to give him a place to hide. When I held a leaf behind him he hopped right under the tray...yay.
It is definitely a toad not a frog, but I am not sure which one.
Best guess is a "Western Toad", with "Canadian Toad" as my current runner-up. But there is a problem with my field guides - one field guide is too narrow, covering western U.S; and the other is too general, covering amphibians world wide.
I am sure there is a better field guide for Illinois somewhere
Thanks for the attempt, pollengarden! I should probably do a little searching online. I thought I'd post the pic first and give it a shot.
I'm looking through some older posts and ran across this one. There are lots of resources online if you search for Illinois toads.
Your critter looks like the Fowler's Toad (#4) on this chart...
http://vetmed.illinois.edu/wildlifeencounters/teacher_resources/Lesson1/IDNR_IllinoisFrogsAndToadsPoster.pdf
But, that's just the first place I looked.
Patti, I'm really sorry I didn't respond sooner, but I just spotted your post. I haven't been visiting DG much recently.
I have also checked various Illinois Toad sites and agree that it probably looks the most like a Fowler's.
I haven't been totally convinced because some pictures I've come across looked very different and also the size seemed to be wrong, but most likely that's what it was. It may have been immature because it was pretty small.
Thanks so much for researching it!
