Model of a Yellow-bellied Toad, 2025

Camouflaged on top, with a yellow-and-black belly underneath to ward off threats—this model of a small yellow-bellied toad fits very well into the tank museum’s collection. This amphibian can grow up to 5 cm long, may live for over 15 years, and prefers floodplains in Central Europe. While adult toads can secrete a toxin through their mucous membranes when threatened, their spawn is endangered by fish and newts.

For that reason, they depend on natural flowing waters that regularly overflow their banks and create new small bodies of water without predators. However, due to river and stream engineering, settlement development, and industrial agriculture, fewer and fewer such habitats exist—so the yellow-bellied toad is considered a highly endangered species.

The yellow-bellied toad therefore shifts to places where humans unintentionally create its special habitat: extraction sites, unpaved and rarely used forest tracks, and military training areas. After the 1990s, however, many training grounds were abandoned and then restored as nature reserves. Reforestation now threatens the toad’s breeding sites, which is why areas must be cleared regularly so water can collect there.

These measures are complex and expensive—cattle and wild horses are intended to reduce vegetation, while excavators compact and clear areas. In nature reserves, tanks therefore still drive from time to time: soldiers of the German armed forces (Bundeswehr) compact the ground with their tanks so that after rainfall, water can collect in the tracks. They use these deployments as training exercises. Private tracked-vehicle clubs also support nature park operators with driving events. Monitoring of young yellow-bellied toads has already shown that these tank drives are successful and that populations in areas traversed by tanks are slowly rising again.