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Late-season Reproduction in Western Toads (Bufo boreas)

Western toads (Bufo boreas, or Anaxyrus boreas of some authors) typically breed from late January to July depending on elevation, latitude, and local conditions (Sornborger 1979; Stebbins 2003; Thompson 2004; Muths and Nanjappa 2005). Generally, breeding takes place early in the active season and is explosive with the breeding season lasting only a few weeks with most of the breeding activity occurring in a few nights (Sornborger 1979; Olson et al. 1986; Muths and Nanjappa 2005; Pauly pers. obs.). At low elevation sites in Southern California, for example, breeding may begin as early as late January assuming rainfall has been adequate to fill breeding sites and stimulate activity. At higher elevation sites, breeding activity is triggered by warming conditions and snowmelt with toads breeding shortly after emerging from hibernation sites (Sornborger 1979; Olson et al. 1986; Fetkavich and Livo 1998; Hammerson 1999; Thompson 2004; Muths and Nanjappa 2005). Here we report unusually late breeding activity in western toads. On 9 November 2015, one of us (KSD) observed late stage tadpoles (up to Gosner Stage 43) at a seasonal pond in the Los Robles Open Space, Santa Monica Mountains, Ventura County, California (34.163226, −118.881964, elevation 370 m; Figs. 1, 2). The pond is oval with maximum size of 7 m by 5 m. No metamorphs were observed in the surrounding terrestrial habitat, but the presence of many tadpoles undergoing metamorphosis suggests that this late breeding event would result in metamorphs leaving the pond within a few days. Photographs of these tadpoles were submitted to the Reptiles and Amphibians of Southern California (RASCals) Citizen Science Project (iNaturalist 2365499) with additional photographs deposited in the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County Photographic Collection (LACM PC 1998–2005). Breeding was likely triggered by an unusually large rain event on the morning of 15 September 2015 that filled this previously dry, temporary pond. This rain event resulted in part from lowlevel moisture from the former Eastern Pacific Hurricane Linda. Weather data from Los Angeles indicate the storm produced the second wettest September day on record (6.07 cm). Data from the nearest weather station in the Santa Monica Mountains, which is at Deals Flat, ca. 11.5 km southwest of the breeding site, are available via climateanalyzer.org. At Deals Flat, 3.3 cm of rain fell in this unusual storm event, which is more rain than fell in the previous February (2.18 cm) or March (1.78 cm) when B. boreas typically breeds in this area. The rain event also took place in the fourth year of a severe drought in Southern California, during which time B. boreas breeding activity was greatly reduced. To the best of our knowledge, the occurrence of tadpoles in November and an inferred breeding date in mid-September are the latest observations of breeding activity reported for B. boreas. Lemm (2006) noted that western toads breed from January to September, a slightly longer period than the January to July period suggested by Stebbins (2003), but no dates or locations of