The discoglossidae family.

The midwife toad.

For a few weeks in late spring or early summer, a male midwife toad carries eggs from the female twined round its back and hind legs.  The female expels her eggs for the male to fertilize externally. It then takes them to the water when they are ready to hatch, the male wades into shallow water allowing the tadpoles to enter the pool. One small colony was known to be in Britain. The midwife toad was accidentally introduced in the 1800`s with some water plants. The midwife toad is a very shy nocturnal animal. During the day they will hide under logs, stone walls and will occasionally dig into soft sandy soil , only emerging at night time to forage for food but they always return to the same hiding place during daylight. The midwife toad is smaller than the common toad with a rounded snout, and are normally light brown-greenish in colour with wort's on its back that release  poison if the toad is handled, because of this the midwife has very few predators. Their tadpoles don`t posses the poison so are preyed upon by fish and sometimes insects. They hibernate during winter in a burrow or a hole and emerge in late spring. The midwife toad is more like a frog than a toad in its looks, but it crawls like all toads when out searching for food, they use their long sticky tongue to catch their prey, which include beetle, caterpillars,crickets,flies,centipedes and millipedes. The tadpoles feed on water plants, chewing them with their tiny, horny teeth. When they get a little bit bigger they eat similar food to the adults.