Is this a Frog or a Toad... what's the diff?

I got to wondering about the difference between a frog and a toad. Besides being four letter words (and one even begins with an "F") there is a bit more needed for enlightenment.

The Basics:

• The skin of a toad is warty or bumpy where a frog's skin is relatively smooth.
• Frogs tend to live in water and toads tend to live on land.
• The toads skin feels dry compared to a frogs skin that feels moist.
• Frogs move around by hopping with strong back legs and the toad just walks.
• A frogs back has two ridges, one down each side. The toads back is much smoother without the pronounced ridges (this relates to why frogs jump and toads walk).
• When a frog lays eggs they look like a lump of cloudy jelly. When the toad lays eggs they are long and stringy and often wrapped around water plants.
• Amazingly one toad, the Nectophyrnoides from the order Anura, bears live young while all the other frogs and toads are still doing the antiquated but time proven method of reproduction, laying eggs.

Also:

• People don't get warts from frogs or toads. I think that was thought up by people afraid of the frog in Little Johnny's pocket.
• If you find a toad in the water their skin will NOT feel dry.
• Toads don't walk upright like people they just don't jump like frogs and frogs don't walk like toads. If you walk like a toad you walk funny and are weird. You should not stand in one place very long or a dog will come along and pee on your leg.
• Have you ever heard of people eating toad legs? Nope, me either. Reason is the frog, especially the bullfrog, has a lot of muscle in their legs so they can jump. Since toads walk they don't have that much meat on them thar gams. Frog legs taste's like chicken... article here.

This is a picture of a Woodhouse's Toad. Note the bumpy skin and fairly smooth back. Regardless of what the frog and toad education articles say, in my ever so humble opinion, this toad's skin would not feel dry at the moment.

Have you noticed a chain of eggs in the background? Me neither.

If you want to see a picture of a frog you have to just look around the frog blog as they are all over the place.


There is a host of other differences but when I start reading the technicalities I start to feel sleepy and somewhat stupid as I don't understand a lot of the terminology. Probably should have paid more attention in biology class.