Spadefoot Toad

True Wild Life | Spadefoot Toad | There are two main types of spadefoot toad, those that live only in North America and those that live in Europe, Northern Africa and Western Asia. The spadefoot toad is an amphibian and anurans. Anurans are frogs and toads. Spadefoot toads are rarely seen because of their unusual habits. They are usually found in Western North American deserts like the Mojave, Chihuaha, and Sonoran. Normally this would be a problem for an amphibian, but spadefoot toads are able to deal with the hot and dry weather as spadefoot toads spend most of their time underground.

The spadefoot toad is a burrowing species of toad and they use their large front feet to make tunnels in the sand. Spadefoot toads are able to spend weeks underground but will come to the surface at night time after heavy rain when the air is moist, so that they can feed. Spadefoot toads are omnivorous animals and have a primarily vegetarian diet when they are young. As the spadefoot toad gets older, they begin to eat large invertebrates such as snails, grasshoppers and caterpillars.

The spadefoot toad tadpoles develop very quickly. They can also dig holes and bury themselves until the next desert rain, when they will spawn and turn into the larger, rounder adult toads.

Spadefoot toads generally live between 3 and 12 years but are prey to a number of larger predators. Birds and birds of prey can pick out an unsuspecting spadefoot toad from the sky above and snakes often hunt them on the ground. Fish are the primary predators for the smaller and more vulnerable spadefoot toad tadpoles.

Marine Toad

True Wild Life | Marine Toad | The marine toad (also known as the cane toad or the giant toad) is a species or terrestrial (land-dwelling) toad that is natively found throughout Central and South America. The marine toad is one of the world's true toads and is often used to eradicate pests from sugar-cane (hence it's name). The marine toad is generally found in the subtropical forests of Central and South America, where despite it's name, spends it's life entirely on the land. The marine toad has also been introduced to non-native regions as a form of pest control for crops.

Marine toads tend to be around 15 cm in length although much larger individuals have been recorded. Marine toads are known to have poison glands which ensure that it has toxic skin. This means that if another animal ate the marine toad, it's quite likely that it would lead to near, if not fatal, consequences. Along with being used to control agricultural pests, the marine toad also has a variety of other uses to humans around the world. Traditionally, tribes people in South America would milk the toads for their toxin (called bufotoxin), which was then used as arrow poison. There are also suggestions that the toxins produced by the marine toad may have also been used as a narcotic by the local people.

As with numerous other toad species, the marine toad is a carnivorous animal, primarily surviving on a diet of insects. Due to their large size however, marine toads have also been known to hunt slightly bigger animals including rodents, reptiles, birds and even other amphibians. Due to it's relatively small size, the marine toad is preyed upon by a number of different species within it's natural environment. Caimans, snakes, rats, eels, opossums and various birds of prey are all predators of the marine toad.

Like other amphibians, the marine toad undergoes the incredible transformation from a water-bound tadpole to a ground-dwelling adult in a matter of months. Like it's adult counterpart, the marine toad tadpoles are also highly toxic to any animal that eats them. Today, the marine toad populations are thriving around the world due to the artificial introductions of the marine toad to many islands in the 1900s. Since then, the marine toad has become a pest in many of these countries as their ruthless nature poses a serious threat to native species.