Thanks to the floods, there has been an invasion: https://www.kcur.org/post/floods-brought-wave-frogs-and-toads-missouri-boon-biologists#stream/0

Looking at my September/October 2019 archives, I have photographed (on 5 different occasions)5 different species of miniature frogs/toads on our deck & patio. Interesting enough. However, I still didn't really think much about it before yesterday https://pbase.com/image/169899881 Now, I am. Because it is usually too dark when I spot the frogs/toads, I've also only captured those critters I've seen during the day. Of course, that doesn't count the above singular individual; who was a major challenge to light. Now thinking more about it, most of these tiny toads and frogs do mainly come out at night; which has been an almost daily event since the beginning of September.

To my dismay, Chile has also been known to chase after them. At the time, I didn't realize that our visitors could be toads or that toads can be poisonous to dogs. I've only seen Chile make contact with one of them & nothing bad happened to her that time. Fortunately, she lost interest after sniffing it. Fortunately, the toad ALSO must not have seen her as a threat.

Or maybe that was a mini frog and not a toad. Even the experts sometimes has trouble differentiating the difference between a frog & a toad if certain species are involved. This particular critter does seems to lack the crest of a toad, but I'm no expert about amphibians. Because I have seen what I absolutely know to be frogs, I'm guessing that we have both that come to visit.

To get a shot in the pitch black night, I used a flashlight in one hand to illuminated the little toad & the camera in the other hand to shoot the photo. There was no other lighting available. He seemed cute at the time & a novelty curled up on the hose. Less than 1 1/2 inches in size, some fine dog hair can be seen on him.