For one, unlike most amphibians, fire-bellied toads are active during the day. Their diurnal tendencies allow keepers to easily observe their behavior, which includes not only the typical frog fare of sitting around and waiting for food, but also aggressive strongholds by males while they grasp seemingly anything that moves, their companions uttering squeaky distress calls and splashing around in embrace. Bombina orientalis is the most commonly available fire-bellied toad. Fire-bellied toads are able to move around freely during the day because glands in their skin secrete a toxin that makes them unappetizing to predators.
This is also the reason for their fire bellies—the red, orange or yellow coloration of the various Bombina species that warns of their poisonous nature. The species is native to Korea, northeast China and a sliver of southeast Russia, with nearly all in the U. While the typical B. Luckily, even the ugliest B. Another species, the yellow-bellied toad B.
It commands a higher price, especially the albino form which is creamy white with a pattern of pasty yellow on the belly the normal coloration is brown above and golden below. Yellow-bellied toads are native to Europe, ranging from Greece and Romania west to Germany and France, where they are more widely kept than in the United States.
Also native to Europe is B. All three species grow to at most near 2 inches in length, the majority staying smaller. Fire-bellied toads are hardy pets that display a number of appealing qualities, including bright colors, diurnal activity and interesting behaviors.
One last species is also available on occasion: the giant fire-bellied toad B. As the name implies, it is larger than the other species by half an inch or more. The mainly tan-gray dorsum is covered in bulbous warts, more so than the mildly granular skin of the other species. The giant fire-bellied toad is native to extreme northern Vietnam and southern China, and captive-bred stock of this big and warty fire belly is available every so often, usually through private breeders or specialty herp dealers.
All of these toads inhabit marshy wetlands and swampy habitats, close to water and often in or near forests. In captivity their care is essentially the same, though due to their hardy nature there are many different ways to care for them. So long as you maintain a clean environment, the right range of temperatures and provide a varied diet, fire-bellied toads should live for 10 years or more in captivity and exceeding 20 years is not unheard of.
While a pet store may be the easiest place to locate fire-bellied toads, consider first contacting your local herpetological society to ask if anyone in your area has had recent breeding success. Captive-bred stock direct from the source is almost always guaranteed to be in better condition than the more commonly available toads caught in the wild and shipped around the world to pet stores.
Look at the enclosure the toads are in. Is it clean? Are there sick or unhealthy animals inside? Are the toads housed with other species? Fire-bellied toads are frequently kept at stores with various types of frogs, newts, crabs or other semi-aquatic animals, but this is a risky situation that can result in stress and foreign pathogens being exchanged between species originating from different places.
If the conditions at the store are not up to par, find your toads elsewhere. Healthy fire-bellied toads should be plump, with the sides of the body slightly rounded. They should not be ballooning out with bloat, or emaciated and sunken in. Also look for excessive sloughing skin. Look carefully, too, for sores and wounds, which often result from trauma, infection or injuries that occur in the cramped conditions in which wild-caught fire-bellied toads are transported to the U. Lastly, try to observe the behavior of the toads.
While fire-bellies are bold amphibians, they should still startle when a hand enters the cage. A setup for fire-bellied toads can be as simple or complex as you like, keeping in mind the semi-aquatic nature of the toads and their preference to float in shallow water with their toes, if only just barely, in contact with something solid beneath.
A standard setup for Bombina incorporates a land area that slopes down into an equally sized water area. The simplest approach is to fill an aquarium with 1 or 2 inches of tap water—treated a day in advance with an aquarium additive to neutralize chlorine and chloramines—and float a large slab of cork bark on the surface. Alternatively, several large rocks granite, quarts or slate can be arranged to protrude from the water as a land area.
No substrate is needed, and the land should be about equal in surface area to water. An alternative approach is to submerge a shallow water container into a substrate of coconut husk fiber or other soil-like substrate.
The water container should cover about half of the bottom of the terrarium. When warmer temperatures arrive in mid-May, the toads emerge and start breeding. Males float on top of the water with their legs splayed, calling with a sound like the gentle tapping of a musical triangle: a "ting-ting" sound that rarely lasts longer than 15 seconds.
Mating usually occurs at night with males grasping the females just in front of the hind limbs, a position known as amplexus. To aid their grip, males are equipped with rough nuptial pads on the inner thumbs, although uninterested females are inevitably able to squirm their way out.
Males will often work themselves into such a frenzy that they accidentally grasp on to anything that looks remotely like another toad, including floating twigs, plants, other frogs and toads, newts, fish and even human fingers.
The reproductive period is very long within each population because different females deposit eggs at different times. Breeding pairs are formed randomly. If mating is successful, females will deposit 40 to eggs either individually or in small clumps of about four to 25 eggs very close to the water surface where the warmth of the sun spotlight can aid embryo development. After about six to eight weeks, hind limbs begin to appear, one from the spiracle, which marks the beginning of lung development.
Tadpoles can frequently be seen surfacing to take gulps of air. After eight to 14 weeks, the tadpoles enter a critical phase when they begin to metamorphose into fully air-breathing amphibians. Tadpoles complete metamorphosis usually by the end of August or September. These toads are one of the longer living toads, frequently living to be 12 to 15 years old. In human care, they can reach 20 years of age. This species as one of least concern because it has such a wide distribution, presumably large population, and because it is unlikely to be declining fast enough to qualify for listing in a more threatened category.
Oriental fire-bellied toads are threatened by habitat loss and degradation. In Russia, the collection of animals for traditional Chinese medicine may be a potential threat. Moderate numbers are exported mainly to Western Europe and North America in the international pet trade. This species is present within a number of protected areas in China and Korea and six nature reserves in Russia.
There is a need to monitor the relatively small Russian population. Skip to main content. Entry passes are required for all guests, including infants.
All visitors ages 2 and older are required to wear a mask in all indoor spaces at the Zoo, regardless of their vaccination status. Fully vaccinated visitors do not need to wear a mask in outdoor areas. Reptile Discovery Center. Oriental fire-bellied toad. During hibernation, some fire-bellied toads hide themselves in the water bottom of the rivers or under the rotten trees and leaves. Fire-bellied toads mate in the late spring.
Female is able to produce between 50 and eggs that will be laid on the plants or leaves that are positioned above the water. Tadpoles hatch after several days and drop directly into the water.
They are usually 0. Tadpoles feed on algae, fungi and plants. It takes several years before tadpoles fully transform into adult animal. Fire-bellied toads have a long lifespan in the wild.
They can survive up to 20 years. Fire-bellied toads are medium sized toads. They eat different types of insects, spiders, crustaceans, mollusks, larva, worms….
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