If you walk one of the paths in the evening, especially after a rain, you will sense a few small toads, scrabbling out of the way. They move slowly, in short hops or steps. They are covered with bumps that look like warts-actually, these are glands that secrete poisons, to discourage predators.Remember that, next time you are tempted to eat one.
Raccoons have learned to turn the toad over and eat it from the underside, avoiding the toxic stuff. Some snakes are immune from the poisons. If a dog tries to eat one, however, the dog may get very sick, or even die.
The male toad has a powerful voice. The sound is two pitches, trilled rapidly, sustained by an air sac under the throat. Where several toads sing at once, the sound is continuous-the defining background music of a summer evening.
The defense mechanisms of this animal are astonishing. If you pick one up, you will not get warts, but the toad will relieve himself. You are getting by easily! For some animals, the poisons of the toadís skin are fatal.
What possible good is a defense mechanism that does not work until the toad is in the mouth of a dreaded predator? Even if the attacking animal is induced to spit it out, the toad will already have suffered considerable damage, or even death.
It would seem the defense is not for the individual, but the species. Your dog may well have killed the toad-but she will not soon bite another. This makes any individual toad the beneficiary of a long history of ancestors who were bitten. In a strange way, the toadís defense is based on the intelligence, memory, and instinctual savvy of its predators.
People, too, can learn from the toad. Come to think of it, it may be a while before I pick another one up.
Top of Page
