"Nice to see you, Ddukkeob!" ... Mungyeong Dolline Wetland, Come See the Toads

As the month enters its final ten days, toads have once again arrived at the Mungyeong Dolline Wetland this year, beginning their full-scale mating and spawning activities.

Every year around this time, toads visiting the wetland engage in fierce competition among smaller males to secure the larger females. After mating, spawning occurs within 1 to 2 weeks, and unlike frog eggs, toad eggs are characterized by being laid in two parallel rows.

Toads are actively mating in the Mungyeong Doline Wetland, where endangered and rare flora and fauna inhabit.

In early April, it is a rare sight to see toad tadpoles, hatched from the eggs, lined up along the edge of the wetland performing a synchronized group movement.

"Dukkeopa~ Dukkeopa~ Heon jip julge sae jip dao" ("Toad, toad, I'll give you an old house, give me a new one") is a song sung while hardening sand on the back of the hand during childhood, making toads very familiar animals to us.

Visitors exploring the wetland greet toads crawling slowly and eagerly follow them with their phones, busy taking continuous photos.

Amphibians such as toads are representative ecological indicator species highly sensitive to environmental changes like climate change, directly informing humans about ecological phenomena altered by climate change. They also act as intermediaries in the food chain, facilitating ecosystem flow and increasing biodiversity in wetlands.

The Mungyeong Dolline Wetland, located in Ugok-ri, Sanbuk-myeon, Mungyeong-si, Gyeongsangbuk-do, is a wetland formed in a doline, a limestone terrain where water does not easily accumulate. Home to 731 species including endangered and rare flora and fauna, it was designated as a National Wetland Protection Area in June 2017.