Golden toad led bachelors to attack amplectant pairs and form what has been described as a "writhing masses of toad balls". During the 1977 and 1982 seasons, males outnumbered females by over 8 to 1 at breeding pools. Each toad couple produced 200–400 eggs each week for the six-week mating period, with each egg approximately 3 mm in diameter. The eggs of the golden toad, black and tan spheres, were deposited in small pools often no more than one-inch deep. Tadpoles emerged in a matter of days, but required another four or five weeks for metamorphosis. During this period, they were highly
Common toad the rate for deaths among males likely to be of a similar order. The main toxic substance found in the parotoid gland and skin of the common toad is called bufotoxin. It was first isolated by Heinrich Wieland and his colleagues in 1922 and they succeeded in identifying its structure about 20 years later. Meanwhile, other workers succeeded in isolating the same compound and its parent steroid bufotalin from the Japanese toad ("Bufo japonicus"). By 1986, researchers at the Arizona State University had succeeded in synthesizing the toad venom constituents bufotalin, bufalitoxin and bufotoxin. The chemical formula of bufotoxin is