toad/frog hybrids?

[leonie_lily]

can frogs and toads interbreed? i befrended an odd pair of mates tonight who bizzarley not only wanted to come on my house(and tryed!) but appeared to be a male common toad( bufo bufo) and female common frog( rana temporaria), is this possible and if so does anyone know what they would produce? any info would be greatly appreciated as its confusing my head! lol

[Malcolm Banks]

Hi Leonie and welcome to WAB. I think the received wisdom is that the males of frogs and toads will in desperation latch on to anything with a pulse, and sometimes even the pulse is not a pre-requisite (Now where have I heard that before Moreover, given the two species' relative evolutionary distance (or genetic dissimilarity), even if the female were to respond to the amplexus and spawn, it is highly unlikely the male's sperm would produce fertilisation. But scientifically you should never say never, and there may be experts out there who will say different
If it were to happen isn't the convention to call the hybrid a Tog, with the opposite pairing a Froad
M