November Wild River Resolution

This year, Friends of the Chicago River invited people across the Chicago-Calumet River system to make Wild River Resolutions, a yearlong reminder to discover, celebrate, and protect the wildlife that depends on a healthy river. Throughout the year, we are highlighting 12 native animals, one each month, that call the 156-mile river system home.

Designed to both educate and inspire, Wild River Resolutions connects people to the species living in and along the river while spotlighting simple, everyday actions that support a healthy, biodiverse, and accessible river system for all people, water, and wildlife.

November – American Toad (Anaxyrus americanus)

The delightful and surprising American toad is common throughout the Chicago region and the 156-mile Chicago-Calumet River system. They can appear in a variety of shades of gray, greenish gray, brown, or even reddish brown. Black spots may be present along with a thin, light stripe down the back. Toads eat earthworms and a wide variety of insects, many of which are pests or annoyances to us and to our gardens. On summer nights, toads often catch and eat insects as they fall to the ground under outdoor lights. Toads can’t use their tongues to swallow. Instead they blink their eyes and the backs of their eyeballs roll into the roof of their mouths, pushing their food down their throats. Rather than drink water, toads absorb moisture through their soft belly skin where it contacts the ground. Unfortunately, this also makes them vulnerable to toxins and water pollution. Although toads prefer dry forests, their life cycle as amphibians keeps them tethered to ponds and rivers. Contrary to superstition, toads do not cause warts in humans.