The common toad usually moves by walking rather slowly or in short jumps using all four legs. It spends the day hiding. It comes out at dusk. It may travel some distance in the dark while hunting. It is most active in wet weather. By morning it has returned to its base. It may live in the same place for several months. It has a large appetite and eats woodlice, slugs, beetles, caterpillars, flies, worms and even small mice. Small, fast moving prey may be caught by a flick of the tongue. Larger items are grabbed with the jaws. Having no teeth, it swallows food whole in a series of gulps. It will try to eat any small, dark coloured, moving object it encounters at night. A research study showed that it would snap at a moving piece of black paper as if it were prey. It would ignore a larger moving piece. On occasion, the common toad sheds its skin which comes away in tattered pieces. The skin is then eaten.