Searching for Toads in Dixie Valley

Sorry, I am late to post again. I don't have an excuse, just got busy and ran out of time. Last week I was in Reno to help some friends with a toad survey in Dixie Valley, unfortunately I didn't see as many toads as I would have liked. Monday there was some miscommunication, so I didn't know when or where we were meeting and I ended up not going. Tuesday, was nice and sunny in the morning and we saw quite a few toads, yay, but in the afternoon it became quite windy and toads do not like the wind so they went and hid and we stopped seeing them. Then on Wednesday morning we decided we would not go into the field for the rest of the week because the weather was to be cold and windy, not good weather for finding toads. The few toads we did catch we measured, PIT tagged (Passive Integrated Transmitter, for a mark recapture study to estimate the population size) and released. Here are a few pictures from the one day I got to go on the "toad hunt."

An adult toad from Dixie Valley, Nevada

A cute little baby toadlet, just about the size of my thumbnail

Dixie Valley, Nevada

The nice hot springs at Dixie Valley, very nice temperature for a dip

Mating toads in Dixie Valley

These toads from Dixie Valley are possibly a new species of toad. They are have a much darker color and are much smaller than the Western Toad (Bufo boreas), which are found throughout Nevada and much of the western United States. I'm excited to hear what the findings will be.