Fire-Bellied Toad

🌍 Overview

The Oriental fire-bellied toad is native to northeastern China, Korea, and the Russian Far East, where it inhabits slow-moving streams and mountain ponds. Its vivid red and orange belly serves as aposematic warning coloration - signaling to predators that it is toxic. When threatened, it arches its back to display this warning coloration (the unken reflex). Fire-bellied toads produce skin secretions toxic enough to irritate mucous membranes and eyes.

📋 Quick Facts

📜 History

George Albert Boulenger described the species in 1890 as Bombinator orientalis, working from specimens held at the British Museum. It went on to become the most commonly kept member of its genus, exported from Korea and China in large numbers. That volume turned out to matter: a study published in Science in May 2018 and led by Imperial College London traced the amphibian-killing chytrid fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis to East Asia, found its most genetically diverse lineage confined to the Korean peninsula, and dated the pathogen's global expansion to the past 50 to 120 years. Asian strains of that fungus were recovered from pet oriental fire-bellied toads, direct evidence that the trade carried it. The IUCN assessed the species as Least Concern in 2020.

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