The shy toad had never been seen in Syria before, but now – of all times – it has been
Ruth Schuster. Dec 22, 2024
Finally, some happy news has come to the Middle East! The Syrian spadefoot toad (Pelobates syriacus) has been rediscovered in Syria.
This is quite the zoological feat given that the country has been wracked by civil war for 13 years and that the shy toad had never actually been seen in Syria before. More specifically, the historic record of the amphibian in Syria consisted of exactly one specimen – and it’s dead. It is being held in perpetuity at the Natural History Museum in London.
The toad cadaver had been given to the museum in 1892 and, as the team points out, its provenance is “vague,” only given as somewhere near Damascus. The team suspects this to be inaccurate because habitat suitability studies, irrespective of explosives, suggest the city’s environs are not compatible with anuran survival.
In fact, the toad’s existence in Syria has been postulated but never proven, according to the paper “Community Science Rediscovers the Syrian Spadefoot Toad, Pelobates syriacus, in War-Torn Regions of Syria” – published last week in the prestigious journal Herpetological Conservation and Biology.
Now it has been, says Yaman Omran of the University of Aleppo with researchers Johnny Baakliny, a student at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and Mark Davis, an Illinois Natural History Survey conservation biologist.
To be fair, it’s hard to spot the Syrian spadefoot toad. It’s perfectly camouflaged for concealment in the swamps it calls home, avoids humans, and has apparently become rare everywhere in its range except Iran. Surveys done before the civil war in Syria (which began in 2011) found not a single one, and there haven’t been any zoological surveys in Syria in recent years due to lack of herpetological funding and support for biodiversity research in the war-torn country.
It was rediscovered thanks to “modern technology,” the team explains – by which they mean not frog-spotting, motion-activated robots, but by using Facebook.
Specifically, the researchers posted a query on the Facebook page Huwat al-Ḥayat al-Barriyah al-Suriyah (Syrian Wildlife Hobbyists) asking the animal aficionados of Syria if they had seen any Syrian spadefoot toads.
They had. “Three confirmed sightings emerged from the group,” the team writes: tadpoles at Lake Sedd al-Rabwa in Western Hama, and two adults found lurking in a greenhouse in Burj Arab in the Tartous governorate.
“Notably, these observations were approximately 35 kilometers [22 miles] from each other and 120 kilometers from the nearest confirmed occurrence in Lebanon,” the team writes.
The Syrian spadefoot toad is a lovely plump anuran with protruding eyes featuring the cat’s-eye slit pupil. It can grow to about 9 centimeters (3.5 inches) long, and, like a frog, has smooth skin. Its coloration can vary widely so that’s no criterion.
The Syrian species is distinguished from the common spadefoot (Pelobates fuscus) chiefly by head shape. The Syrian toad has a flat head, while the common spadefoot’s head is more domelike, according to people who have seen them.
The spadefoot exists in Israel too, where, in contrast to Syria, it has been seen. But again, seeing it is a rare occurrence. Here, the toad is called the hafarit metzuyaafter the decision fell to stop calling it hafarit ein hahatul (cat’s eye toad). When adults and larvae of the rare species were discovered in a winter pool at the Check Post in Haifa during construction of a mall – they were rescued, tenderly hosted at Tel Aviv University. Their descendants have been dispersed here and there in the wild to shore up the local toad population.
We can only wish the toads good luck even though they are listed under “least concern” in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. The IUCN features a map of their distribution, showing exactly why we should be worried. It survives mainly in isolated spots around the Black and Caspian seas, with tiny populations in the Middle East as well. Clearly in the distant past it had a vast range, which is no more.
Based on the forecasts for climate change in the Middle East and the Caucasus, its situation is not likely to improve.
Why does the toad’s status matter except to its mother and herpetologists? It matters to us all. We have destabilized the planet’s climate and ecology, and amphibians are considered to be a bellwether of ecological health because they are relatively sensitive. Just for one tiny instance, pollutants in the water – which have become a worldwide problem – leads to startling birth defects in amphibians such as extra legs.
In short, amphibians generally and our newly rediscovered friend the Syrian spadefoot toad, are sentinel species, indicators of the state of our environment. It is hard to monitor the state of a shy, delicate amphibian in a war zone, which is hazardous for zoologists, the team points out. They are therefore highly appreciative of the efforts of citizen science via social media, which has now proved its efficacy under fire.
So, the Syrian toad is back. As for that one in London from the early days of archaeological and zoological surveys of the Middle East – could that toad have originated in … the land that is today Israel? In 1892, Syria was part of the Ottoman Empire, the team points out. The whole area from Aleppo and Damascus down the Beqaa Valley in Lebanon to Mount Hermon was known as the Vilayet of Damascus.
“Therefore, the label Damascus on the specimen might refer to the entire region of the eastern Mediterranean known as the Vilayet of Damascus during that period,” the team says – and at this point in time, Mount Hermon is in Israeli hands.
But it doesn’t actually matter. The toad is here and the toad is there. Maybe one day the toad will be everywhere, but that isn’t looking likely. Meanwhile, we can take pleasure in the knowledge they are around, even if we never see any.