Here are some basic features. Unlike other frogs, toads do not jump, do not croak, and do not live in water. They are the biggest frogs in Europe. Their color and size vary, depending on their age, half of the environment in which they live. It does not hunt prey, but patiently waits for it, and eats as much as it weighs per day. It grows throughout its life, so it changes its skin, which it also eats.
Toads are terrestrial animals, they enter the water only during mating season. They are active at night, while during the day they have their hiding places, like this toad of mine. Females are larger than males and larger ones are more attractive. It happens that several male toads jump on a female so that during the act of love they can even die. A toad lays up to 12,000 eggs, but few of them reach sexual maturity and become adults that will have offspring, although they do not have many natural enemies.
The reason why toads do not have many natural enemies lies in their poison glands. Here in Serbia, for example, it was believed that if you touch a toad, you will get warts or scabs. This of course is not true because their glands secrete a liquid that has a large number of bactericides and fungicides because if it wasn't like that, bearing in mind that they spend time in the water, the toads would get moldy.
The toad's glands also secrete bufotenine, which if ingested causes hallucinations of disembodied flight. It is 5 times stronger than LSD. That's why it's no wonder that I've come across texts before where the liquid is drained from the glands of these frogs or even that drug addicts lick them.
But this is nothing new. All sorcery and witchcraft during the Middle Ages and later were based on frog poison, which was also used in voodoo magic. You are probably familiar with the scene of the witches cook the frogs. Leonardo da Vinci also wrote about magical potions whose ingredients contain substances from the glands of frogs. And bufotenin was used for magical purposes even in the 20th century throughout Europe. I believe that is still the case today in some rural areas.
There was even a belief that frogs are enchanted human beings, who carry a valuable jewel in their head, and that's why they were killed.
A few years ago, about 1,500 toads were seized in Peru from a van, which would have been used for various aphrodisiacs.
Bearing in mind the above, it can be concluded that we have not moved far from the Middle Ages and that frogs were killed both then and in the 21st century for more or less similar reasons.
After everything I've written, I can't get rid of the impression that humans are the real torturers of frogs, even though they've been on this planet much longer than us, they lived at the time of the dinosaurs. We cook them, squeeze them, dissect them, lick them, and destroy and dry out their habitats, which has had the effect of reducing their population a lot.
After photographing my wood toad (lat. Bufo Bufo), I put it back where I found it and covered it with leaves. She was very calm and I had the impression that she didn't want to run away.
Be safe dear toad!
In this text, I found information about toads here,here and here
We appreciate your work and your post has been manually curated by zoology team (oscurity,nelinoeva) on behalf of Amazing Nature Community. Keep up the good work!
What amazinnng!!!!!this post has everything we LOVE in our community, good content, good photos and of course the source where you get the information from!
Thanks @hive-127788 I love nature a lot, researching and writing, so I'm obviously in the right place.😊
toads have such great adaptability that their method of "calling their opposite sex" is to make noise... They are not afraid of attracting predators!!!
We appreciate your work and your post was manually curated by @none! from the DNA team!
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Thanks @dna.org and @none! 💚
This is very informative, I got to learn a lot, thanks fur sharing this, she's absolutely beautiful.
I do agree that people are the real torturers of nature's gifts, we tend to use them the way we please because we have higher hands than them which is sad.
Thank you very much @balikis95 and I'm glad you like my story. Yes, she's beautiful to me too, like a classy lady! 😊
Have a good weekend! ❤Greeting.
Great class with high taste and I am glad you found her. You are most welcome dear @ladysnowhite. So should you! Happy weekend too.
Wow. Beautiful read. The topic captivated me and I enjoyed the read. From the topic, I strongly believe the toad will make top 10 of my guess list for animals with that feature. Till now, I am still kinda scared about toads. The fact they can jump out at anyone is still scary to me.
Also,
Is this a proven fact? 😂
I'm glad you like my story @okeke and thank you for your kind words 😊 It's true that males love big females, bless them, they can eat as much as they want😁 Thanks for stopping by!