The above male Fire-bellied Toad, is floating on the surface of the swamp in which it lives, and calling to attract a female. Calling day and night, the small toad will finally succeed to grasp a female in amplexus and pass its genes to the next generation. Amplexus is the special grip with which amphibian males hold the females during copulation. Although the animals will get tightly grasped together, there is no penis, no insertion, and the fertilisation takes place in the water, at least for the Anura, the group of frogs and toads (Anura in Greek means 'without tail). When the female release the eggs, the male is releasing sperm to fertilise them.
Like these Green Toads in amplexus, that just enter the water. They spend most of their lives on dry land, but come spring, and they migrate to ponds where they breed. Males will grasp walking females in amplexus, far from the water, and the larger females will carry them on their backs to the water bodies where they spawn. There, in the water, a slow process starts, where most of the time the two animals are motionless, with bouts of activity every now and then. This is very true especially when temperatures are low. But in February, Green Toads will mate with air temperatures 11 degrees Celsius or lower, and water temperatures 13 degrees or lower.
The ribbons of eggs seen in the above photo, quickly transform into tiny embryos and then tadpoles. Thousands of them.
Sometimes the process can be more complicated. When males find a female, they try to grasp her, and sometimes more than one manage to get a grip.
Green and Common Toads, are of the earlier breeders, starting in January, especially in Peloponnisos and southern Greece. But the same species can breed later too, and on the mountains breeding can be seen in May as well. Another early breeder is the Agile Frog, Rana dalmatina, with eggs found as early as Christmas.
Another member of the Rana genus is the Greek Stream Frog, Rana graeca. It was a species that until recently the voice of it was not recorded. Despite the fact the they live in mountsin streams and there is a lot of noise form the water, Rana graeca have a quite, soft croaking. For the video, you can see here: https://herpinggreece.wixsite.com/herpinggreece/post/greek-stream-frog-call-and-amplexus
In lowland wetlands of western Greece, a cacophony of croakings can be heard at night. Many species vie for attention, all together making the soundscape almost unbearable.
But at Western Peloponnisos, we still have to hear and record the voice of a largely secretive and silent toad: the Eastern Spadefoot. Although we have been at the right time at the right place, no one has heard this little guy up to this day. Its secrets keep calling us to their breeding grounds for years, but still nothing.
All Anura communicate with sound and they can be easily detected from their croaking. But there is another order of Amphibians, quite different from them, they are called Urodela. In this order of amphibians Salamanders and Newts are members. These are silent animals and they use body language and pheromones to mate.
Newts have a special way to mate. Males try to intercept the trajectory of a female, they swim in front of her waving their tail towards her, sending pheromones to her. If she agrees, the male deposits a spermatophore, a sac with sperm, and the female takes this inside her body with her cloaca.
Last but not least, in Greece we have two Lyciasalamanders living on Kastellorizo and Karpathos group of islands. Very restricted and beautiful animals, they have no need of water for their reproduction. They have evolved on very dry islands, and they managed to survive because they give birth to live young. Their amplexus is also special. Contrary to any other Greek amphibian, the male goes under the female, stretches the arms backwards to grasp the arms of the female in a strange amplexus, and uses the soft spike on top of its tail, to make its way to her cloaca
