It’s toad time in the Sonoran Desert, the season when Incilius alvarius, popularly the Sonoran Desert toad—also the Colorado River toad or locally “the toad”—pops out of its underground burrow at the first hint of rain from the North American monsoon.
Like the tall-armed saguaro cactus and the lumbering desert tortoise that are both native to this desert, these toads “are an intrinsic part of the region,” says Robert Villa, president of the Tucson Herpetological Society and a research associate at the Desert Laboratory in Tucson.
“They characterize the Sonoran Desert just by existing,” he said. “If they disappear, we would become bio-culturally impoverished.”
Though the Sonoran Desert toad is not currently in danger of extinction, they are increasingly threatened by climate change,
