It owes its name to the light-coloured back stripes along the spine - "the cross". You can also easily recognise them by the way they move - Natterjack toads (Epidalea calamita) don't hop, because they have legs that are too short for that. They scurry across the ground like mice. Striking are their lemon-yellow eyes with horizontal oval pupils. They only emerge from their hiding places at dusk and during the night. From May onwards, it is mating season - then you can hear the males with their creaking calls from several hundred metres away.
On the wild river Tiroler Lech, the natterjack toad mainly inhabits Small bodies of water, puddles and ruts in the sparse alluvial forest. This is where it finds its only natural habitat. It also chooses gravel pits and quarries as its habitat if it cannot find natural habitats on unspoilt rivers with high dynamics and open, sandy areas.
The natterjack toad is acutely threatened with extinction! That's why the Tiroler Lech Nature Park has set up a Species conservation project was launched.