Mistletoad and Wine
First off, Merry Christmas and a Hoppy New Year to everyone who has been following the project. I thought I'd give you a quick Christmas update before we enter 2022, when we hope to finally wrap the project up! I'm sure you can appreciate how hard it has been to conduct the surveys needed to collect DNA samples from midwife toads, especially when a number of the populations occur in the gardens of local residents. Some have been rightly wary about about letting strangers through their houses, to access said gardens in these trying times. Despite the current trajectory of COVID-19 cases, I'm optimistic that we can get the last of the samples we need, seeing as there are only three or four populations left to swab. These are ones that we're most interested in, due to a lack of other known populations in the surrounding area, which may indicate a separate introduction event. Only time will tell.
However, 2021 has been a success in terms of swabbing midwife toad populations. On top of those that we've already reported on this year, we've recently had the opportunity to swab the Wymington population. While tidying up in their garden, one of the local residents alerted us to the fact that they'd found some midwife toads. With no time to lose, one of us visited and swabbed five of the toads, taking buccal samples. Wymington is extremely close to Rushden where there is another population, given the close proximity of the two, they likely have the same origin pathway. So, by swabbing these five toads, we've managed to collect data from both populations. That certainly helps with things!
Things don't stop there. We've also been in touch with Bill Ely, who has been recording wildlife in Rotherham since 1975, and has a deep interest in the midwife toads in the area. Bill helped to clear up the fact that there are no midwife toads in Rotherham itself, which removes an additional population from our list that we need to swab. Bill also clarified that it is known that all of the populations east of Rotherham around Woodsetts, have the same origin. We've only swabbed two of these populations so far, and given their close proximity to one another, this isn't too far-fetched. We'd like to get out and swab a couple more if we can. If we're not able to, it doesn't look like it's going to be the end of the world. Midwife toad records are still yet to materialise from Hampshire, so it's unlikely that they are present, although we can't be sure if that has always been true.
Finally, I thought I'd share with you a couple of recent publications that we've been able to author through observations made during the undertaking of midwife toad monitoring. The first of these relates to the first observation of midwife toad tadpoles feeding on carrion, in this case a dead common frog, and a drowned earthworm. The second is an observation of midwife toad tadpoles in a saucer, which may indicate intentional placement from a male midwife toad. These observations may not be the most revolutionary scientific discoveries of 2021, but they help us to understand these curious little toads more. You'll find links to them at the bottom of this page. Rest assured, if we make any other interesting observations, we'll do our best to share these with the wider researcher community too!
1 comment