Speaker 1: Oh hey, it's your sister's new boyfriend who you're quietly
Speaker 1: judging because of his cracked phone screen and bad shoes.
Speaker 1: Ali Ward back with another episode of Ologies. If this
Speaker 1: is your very first episode, Just a few things. We
Speaker 1: swear a whole bunch in this. We swear a lot
Speaker 1: of them, most of them. If you wish we didn't,
Speaker 1: don't freak out. There are bleeped episodes of the podcast
Speaker 1: available at aliward dot com. I'll put a link in
Speaker 1: the show notes, moving the dang heck on. Okay, So
Speaker 1: freakin toads. What are they? And are they the best?
Speaker 1: Are they the worst? Are toads the unsung underdogs? Are
Speaker 1: they wardy friends yet to be made? Or are they bastards?
Speaker 1: Do they belong in a heap of canceled beasts who
Speaker 1: don't deserve our admiration? You'll find out. But first business,
Speaker 1: in which I thank everyone on patreon dot com slash
Speaker 1: ologies for their questions, for their patronhood, for making the
Speaker 1: show feasible and possible and just a joy to make.
Speaker 1: Also thank you to everyone sporting ologies merch from ologiesmarch
Speaker 1: dot com and everyone who just gets it and knows
Speaker 1: that making sure that you're subscribed, and reading the show
Speaker 1: helps us get seen by pre ologites people who don't
Speaker 1: know about the show yet. Also thanks to the kind
Speaker 1: folks who are leaving reviews, because you know that I
Speaker 1: read them when I'm in a hotel eating gas station food,
Speaker 1: and they make my day. And so I read you
Speaker 1: a new one each week as a thank you. And
Speaker 1: this week, Justin Dees said, my grandma passed away recently,
Speaker 1: and the only thing I could do to keep myself
Speaker 1: from crying was listening to ologies. Ali. You helped me
Speaker 1: laugh when I felt like crying. That's huge. Keep it up,
Speaker 1: my friend, Justine. I'm so sorry about your grandma. I'm
Speaker 1: sending you a hug. Everyone texts your grandma. I does
Speaker 1: your grandma text? If you have a grandma, text her
Speaker 1: and say, hey, thanks for pushing out a baby. That
Speaker 1: pushed out a baby. I don't know you word it
Speaker 1: however you want to word it. Okay, boophology, let's go
Speaker 1: down a total. Let's get the hell into it.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 1: Boofology is a word that I did not make up,
Speaker 1: although it's seldom cited. To be fair to the eleven
Speaker 1: Reptile Magazine article titled ode to a toad uses the
Speaker 1: term boofhology one oh one, so I'm going with it.
Speaker 1: There's also herpetology, which is reptiles and amphibians. There's about tractcology,
Speaker 1: which is the subfield that is just amphibians, which I
Speaker 1: may have pronounced wrong, but I tried to pronounce it
Speaker 1: so many times. But what if I want to do
Speaker 1: a frog episode down the line or one on Newts.
Speaker 1: So I'm going boofhology because it exists, people use it sometimes. Also,
Speaker 1: Its root is buffo and the Latin for toad, which
Speaker 1: may come from a word meaning slimy plant, or it
Speaker 1: may also come from bouffara, meaning to puff up, and
Speaker 1: buffoonery is a related word. It's debatable, like toads for
Speaker 1: some people. So where are you with toads? You know what?
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter because in an hour and change you'll
Speaker 1: be padding out to the backyard a little bare feet
Speaker 1: with your coffee mug every morning, just hoping for a
Speaker 1: toad and counter just mark my words. Okay, So this
Speaker 1: ologist is wonderful. We tried to meet up so many
Speaker 1: times in the past year or so, but our travel
Speaker 1: plans kept hitting snags, and then this past week we
Speaker 1: both happened to be thousands of miles away from our
Speaker 1: respective homes. We were in Minneapolis on the same night.
Speaker 1: She was on a road trip toad trip, and I
Speaker 1: was on this Ology's Midwestern interview Bonanza. So I used
Speaker 1: your patroon money to get her a nice room in
Speaker 1: the same hotel, and with butterflies. I went down to it,
Speaker 1: kind of like a nervous tender date. She is a
Speaker 1: gorgeous soul. She's so funny and candid and enthusiastic about toads,
Speaker 1: and I love her and I hope we are always friends.
Speaker 1: So if this is your first episode of Ologies, Boy, Howdy,
Speaker 1: buckle up, get ready to hear scientists passionately describe a
Speaker 1: love of toads. She's so humid. I cherish her. So.
Speaker 1: She was once the program manager for the Association of
Speaker 1: Fish and Wildlife Agencies, where she also served as a
Speaker 1: national coordinator for her partners in amphibian and reptile conservation.
Speaker 1: She worked as a biological science technician for the US
Speaker 1: Geological Survey in the Amphibian Research and Monitoring Initiative, and
Speaker 1: now works in the nonprofit ecology sector at Conservation Science Partners,
Speaker 1: but is still in the field a bit out toting
Speaker 1: and salamandering and frogging and newting. But today she is
Speaker 1: in a Minnesota hotel about to get super buffhological with me.
Speaker 1: So hop on in to a conversation with amphibian enthusiast
Speaker 1: and buffologist Pria Ninjappa on my way to say, Pria
Speaker 1: Ato sex ato.
Speaker 3: Six.
Speaker 1: Here we go me, Pria gonna talk toads, you know six.
Speaker 1: Oh my goshchry goes.
Speaker 3: This is like a blind.
Speaker 1: Toads and now you are a lover of toads? Yes,
Speaker 1: what is it about toads specifically you love? I know
Speaker 1: that that. Why did I open with a question that's
Speaker 1: we could do a whole series?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, there's so many things to love. So I
Speaker 2: was thinking about this because I knew you we're gonna
Speaker 2: ask me this, And there's so many different ways I
Speaker 2: could go with this question. But I think just in general,
Speaker 2: I tend to be somebody who likes the underdog, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean, like the thing that people don't
Speaker 2: want to love. You know. That kind of plays into
Speaker 2: my romantic life as well too. But anyway, that's a
Speaker 2: whole nother story. They're just so fucking cute, you know,
Speaker 2: like you just they're they're fat, and they're like grumpy face,
Speaker 2: and you just know that they're really not grumpy, or
Speaker 2: you want them to really not be grumpy, but they
Speaker 2: just they want to act grumpy. They want to tough,
Speaker 2: they puff up.
Speaker 1: Pre I studied wildlife biology with a minor in environmental
Speaker 1: studies at Iowa State University, and then she went on
Speaker 1: to get a master's in conservation biology at Ball University,
Speaker 1: and her work involved developing the first national database of
Speaker 1: amphibian distributions and maps. Kind of like a census taker,
Speaker 1: just going up to tiny toad houses saying, hey, knock, knock,
Speaker 1: how do hoo? Pardon? How many are you living in
Speaker 1: that lock? I'd like to observe you eating bugs and
Speaker 1: doing the nasty. But what got her into it?
Speaker 2: I remember my first toad sighting, which was in my
Speaker 2: mom's garden in Iowa, and it just would like hop
Speaker 2: along the tomato plants and eat things, and like eventually
Speaker 2: we figured out that we could build a little toad
Speaker 2: hut like out of a pot, you know, and just
Speaker 2: put that in there and it would just you know,
Speaker 2: go and hang out. And I was so sad on
Speaker 2: the days when I didn't see it, like, I'm sure
Speaker 2: it was all seasonal, but I don't remember, you know,
Speaker 2: this specifics of it. And I do remember other people's
Speaker 2: houses where there'd be one like sitting under the gutter
Speaker 2: eating the flies and stuff like that. And I liked
Speaker 2: other critters too, but there was something about the toads
Speaker 2: that I just kept coming back to that I just
Speaker 2: kept like, I don't know, I just love them. They're
Speaker 2: just they just have that face, you know, it's just
Speaker 2: that face.
Speaker 1: I love that you had a toad friend, Like the
Speaker 1: toad was your friend.
Speaker 2: It kind of was my friend.
Speaker 1: Her wordy buddy got a toad a boat, and in
Speaker 1: return it ate all the bugs that wanted to eat
Speaker 1: their lettuces. It was a mutually beneficial relationship, kind of
Speaker 1: like when you dog sit and then also while you're there,
Speaker 1: you eat all their snacks.
Speaker 2: And then I think we somehow like figured out or
Speaker 2: looked it up. You know, there's no no internet back
Speaker 2: in those tests, but we figured out that there was,
Speaker 2: that it was going to be a helpful thing, and
Speaker 2: so yeah, and so that toad lived there, and I
Speaker 2: want to think that it's was saying the same toad
Speaker 2: came back like year after year. But I know we
Speaker 2: definitely saw a toad in the garden at least a
Speaker 2: couple of years. But yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Maybe they're great grandson of the original two.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, that will be just so delightful that
Speaker 2: was true. How long do they live? Oh man, there's
Speaker 2: a variety of age ranges, just depending on the species.
Speaker 2: I think probably ten years. You know, five to ten
Speaker 2: years is on average in the wild, I think, But
Speaker 2: there are some in captivity. I think that you know,
Speaker 2: have can live really long.
Speaker 1: They look ancient. They do like they're in their eighties.
Speaker 1: All of them look like Wilford Brimley, and we've like
Speaker 1: hair listen greed totally do.
Speaker 2: I'm Wilford Brimley, and I'd like to talk to you
Speaker 2: for a few minutes about diabetes PS.
Speaker 1: Wilford Brimley was a TV star who was also known
Speaker 1: for his Quaker Oats commercials and for changing the American
Speaker 1: pronunciation of diabetes to diabetes diabetes. Also, I just looked
Speaker 1: up some facts about Wilford Brimley and the one of
Speaker 1: the most stunning is he's very much alive. He's only
Speaker 1: eighty four years old, which means that he it was
Speaker 1: just sixty when he was playing like deep deep Grandpa
Speaker 1: genre rolls. I respect him for just leaning into that.
Speaker 1: So toads tiny grumpy grandpas. They are grumpas okay, But
Speaker 1: what makes a toad a toad? Straight away? What is
Speaker 1: the difference between a frog and a toad?
Speaker 2: Okay, So generally speaking, most frogs have like smooth skin,
Speaker 2: they tend to need a closer association with water or
Speaker 2: aquatic environments. And then the toads that we traditionally know,
Speaker 2: you know, with the big kind of stout fat bodies
Speaker 2: and the warts and everything, they typically can be away
Speaker 2: from water longer and they don't need as much of
Speaker 2: that sort of direct moisture the way that frogs do.
Speaker 2: And then they also secrete these toxins from their skin
Speaker 2: and so yeah, and so like that's the biggest thing.
Speaker 2: There are some frogs that do that as well, but
Speaker 2: pretty much all toads have some sort of gland you
Speaker 2: know that they and they secrete some sort of buffo toxin.
Speaker 2: And so.
Speaker 1: It's such a good punk band, right, yeah, that would be.
Speaker 1: Is there skin thicker and what exactly are the worts?
Speaker 1: Are they air quotes warts.
Speaker 2: That's a good question. These warts on toads are associated
Speaker 2: with these They have mucous glands and granular glands, but
Speaker 2: the granular glands are the ones that are responsible for
Speaker 2: the toxic secretions. And it's for an anti predator defense,
Speaker 2: so that when anything, you know, grabs it, it just
Speaker 2: tastes bad and they spit it out, you know, or
Speaker 2: sometimes they'll get sick. Some of the toads produce some
Speaker 2: pretty strong toxins. So all toads are frogs, but not
Speaker 2: all frogs are toads. I love those.
Speaker 1: It's the old cactus succulent, yes, Like all cactus are succulents,
Speaker 1: not all succulents are cacti.
Speaker 2: Yes, exactly. Like in the amphibian world, there's like like nuts,
Speaker 2: you know, like all nuts are salamanders, but not all
Speaker 2: salamanders are nuts, and nuts are too salamanders, like toads
Speaker 2: are to frogs. Kind of early lineages of toads are
Speaker 2: they look more frog like, okay, and so like over
Speaker 2: time that those different features, the more like stout bodies
Speaker 2: and uh, bigger warts and glands and things like that
Speaker 2: appear kind of later in evolutionary history. They came after frogs,
Speaker 2: so somewhere in that like Cretaceous Cenozoic period they've been around.
Speaker 1: Oh geez, they're Wilfrid Brimley's. It's a side note. Wonderfully
Speaker 1: British vertebrate paleontologist Darren Nish has written extensively on toad
Speaker 1: evolution and its many gnarled branches. And also he has
Speaker 1: a pet cane toad named Milo, which looks like it
Speaker 1: can kick my ass. Anyway, more on cane toads in
Speaker 1: a minute. But cane toads, like frogs, have teeth sort of,
Speaker 1: they have like a little peg like nubbuts, but other
Speaker 1: toads do not have teeth. So to recap, toads are frogs,
Speaker 1: and toads have no teeth. Yes, for warts, they've got
Speaker 1: a poison gland behind their eyes. I called a paratoid gland,
Speaker 1: thought to have been like an adrenal gland, just gone bonkers.
Speaker 1: Oh and another souped up special feature not available on
Speaker 1: this standard frog model.
Speaker 2: And then the other really weird thing is that toads
Speaker 2: have this thing called the bitters organ okay, which sits
Speaker 2: like kind of between the kidneys and the gonads and
Speaker 2: I think both males and females have them, but they're
Speaker 2: thought to be like a primitive ovary or like it's
Speaker 2: kind of like a spare set of follicles. But the
Speaker 2: males have it too, and so like in experiments in
Speaker 2: the lab, they've removed the testes like just castrated them,
Speaker 2: and all of a sudden, this bitter's organ like is like, oh, okay,
Speaker 2: time for me to come into play. And then like
Speaker 2: it starts forming eggs and like, yeah, initially when I
Speaker 2: had learned about it, I was thinking that maybe it
Speaker 2: would go, you know, it would like you know, create
Speaker 2: sperm or something in the males and over or eggs
Speaker 2: and the females, but no, it's just like always produces eggs.
Speaker 2: It has like follicles. And then the same thing with
Speaker 2: the female, like if one of the ovaries doesn't work,
Speaker 2: then it will start to come into play. But the
Speaker 2: other interesting thing with the males is that like in
Speaker 2: some situations where there's estrogen, mimic chemicals or like other
Speaker 2: chemical things that will like chemically castraight, all of a
Speaker 2: sudden that organ starts taking off too. And like it's
Speaker 2: named after the dude who discovered it, but it always
Speaker 2: relates to eggs and oocytes, and that means that, you know,
Speaker 2: the ability to possess ovaries is probably like the original
Speaker 2: evolutionary condition, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: That's my story, and I was sticking to it.
Speaker 1: I love it, publish it. I just peer reviewed it.
Speaker 3: Perfect.
Speaker 1: That's up, doney. Well okay, And then what about their big,
Speaker 1: crazy weird ear drum.
Speaker 2: Oh so, well, so they I mean, they do have
Speaker 2: that tympanum, and that's how they can hear each other
Speaker 2: sing their lovely songs. But those ones in those areas
Speaker 2: where they don't call, they have like they have lost
Speaker 2: their ear drums, so they just you know, do the
Speaker 2: waving thing or whatever, and and they they don't even
Speaker 2: need them anymore, so they don't have them. So yeah,
Speaker 2: but it's just that tympanic membrane. It's kind of like
Speaker 2: in most frogs like have them. It's that it's just
Speaker 2: like a little kind of like a drumhead, you know, basically,
Speaker 2: and they you know, sense vibrations from the calls of others.
Speaker 2: But they can sense, you know, they can tell the
Speaker 2: difference between their own species obviously in others. And yeah, what.
Speaker 1: About their eyes? Is their eyesight good? Eyesight bad.
Speaker 2: I don't think they're supposed to have very good I
Speaker 2: have never seen them in glasses that they would look
Speaker 2: so good in glasses though, wouldn't they. Yeah, they would
Speaker 2: look so good, like just some little hipster like comes
Speaker 2: to some you know, nice like sort of thick frame
Speaker 2: glasses or those ones without the rooms. Yeah, so I
Speaker 2: think they I don't think they're thought to have like
Speaker 2: great eyesight, but I don't think it's bad. I think
Speaker 2: they can discern color though, because like some of the
Speaker 2: like some toads are sexually dimorphic more than just the size, Like,
Speaker 2: there is actually color differences, so kind of like in
Speaker 2: birds and stuff like that. So yeah, so they must
Speaker 2: be able to have they must have some color vision.
Speaker 2: But I don't know.
Speaker 1: Are the males bigger than the females.
Speaker 2: The females are bigger than the males by a lot. Yeah,
Speaker 2: by a lot, yes, Oh yeah, usually by quite a bit.
Speaker 2: Like if you see them mating, like it's just like
Speaker 2: this little tiny male on top of this big old female,
Speaker 2: and it's just always looks a little funny.
Speaker 1: Oh, and both have tympanyms to hear sound, such as
Speaker 1: for example, the romantic screamy love ballads. Man toads make
Speaker 1: by inflating an air sack like a big extra chin,
Speaker 1: kind of like having a subwoofer on your face.
Speaker 2: Hey, So, another thing that's really cool about toads is
Speaker 2: they have all like a lot more bony material in
Speaker 2: their skull, Like their skulls are like highly ossified, and
Speaker 2: those crests and the shape of those crests and stuff
Speaker 2: are what you can use to distinguish species when they
Speaker 2: are like in the same area and you have a
Speaker 2: lot of similar looking little brown toads with warts other
Speaker 2: than the wartz per spot certain species. Yeah, no, it's yeah,
Speaker 2: it's it's warts per spot. So like in the like
Speaker 2: dark brown spot, there'll be like two or three warts
Speaker 2: if it's an American toad, and then if it's a
Speaker 2: Fowler's toad or something or woodhouses toad, they'll have more
Speaker 2: in each like dark spot. And then there's like the
Speaker 2: shape of the parotoid glands, which are the things that
Speaker 2: produce like behind their eyes, that produce that more of
Speaker 2: the toxic secretion, and then those little crests and and
Speaker 2: ridges and everything like they yeah, that's how they differentiate themselves.
Speaker 2: But yeah, so they have these really cool skulls. Frogs
Speaker 2: don't have that. Yeah, you think of them as like
Speaker 2: the cavemen. They're actually the ones that came later.
Speaker 1: You're gonna get a full toad back tattoo. There are
Speaker 1: toads on all.
Speaker 2: Continents everywhere except Australia, which right now is only being
Speaker 2: overrun by the invasive cane toad.
Speaker 1: Oh really, yes, Australia got a little bit ripped off
Speaker 1: on the toad card and then they got pad.
Speaker 2: They got yeah kind of yeah, and they didn't used
Speaker 2: to be on Madagascar either, but now there's a different
Speaker 2: toad that is found on Madagascar that's also super invasive
Speaker 2: and yeah, wreaking havoc. So yeah, Unfortunately, the toads that
Speaker 2: are finding their way to places where they never were,
Speaker 2: like the ones you just don't want to be there.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's loop around back real quick and talk about
Speaker 1: cane toads, shall we. Okay, great, So these are these
Speaker 1: huge ass toads. They're also called marine toads even though
Speaker 1: they're terrestrial. Lineas made like an oopsye daisy in the
Speaker 1: seventeen hundreds about their habitat, but the largest recorded one
Speaker 1: measured over nine inches long. They look like holding a
Speaker 1: big leathery pretzel roll, but with legs, and they are
Speaker 1: college Stoner level hungry. They eat everything from like live bats,
Speaker 1: sometimes plants, to bugs, to dead animals to just straight
Speaker 1: up garbage, sometimes just literal actual garbage. Most scientists report
Speaker 1: they seem to give few, if any fucks, enabling them
Speaker 1: to get both large and in charge. They also have
Speaker 1: successful and very prolific mating strategies. So insummation cane toads
Speaker 1: they're like the Romans. They like to eat, they like
Speaker 1: to make love, and they're native to the Americas and
Speaker 1: even South Texas, but they now live all over the
Speaker 1: damn place because in the nineteen thirties someone was like, hey,
Speaker 1: I got an idy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, is like where they were growing sugar cane. They
Speaker 2: were they had brought them there to control like the bugs,
Speaker 2: you know that were eating the sugar cane. And then,
Speaker 2: of course, you know, anytime you bring a thing to
Speaker 2: control the thing that you don't want, then that thing goes,
Speaker 2: you know, crazy. So there are these big beefy marine toads,
Speaker 2: and so they can live. They can tolerate like salt
Speaker 2: water environments, but they also apparently can live all over
Speaker 2: the place, you know, on land, so they're like in
Speaker 2: vast swaths of Australia and all over Hawaii, they're in Florida.
Speaker 1: Now, how do you control a cane toad population.
Speaker 2: It's proving to be really difficult. They have had some
Speaker 2: luck with I want to say, caffeine, where they're like
Speaker 2: dropping caffeine or spraying caffeine. That has been effective in
Speaker 2: some places in knocking down the population. And I think
Speaker 2: just generally they try to go and like you know,
Speaker 2: collect collect them up and then just you know, euthanize them.
Speaker 2: So yeah, that's pretty much.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So yes, some parts of the world have a
Speaker 1: real cane toad problem. Also, the beetles that they were
Speaker 1: supposed to eat, they like to climb to the top
Speaker 1: of the sugar cane and the toads are like, it's
Speaker 1: too high, No, RICI, I'll just eat this bird instead.
Speaker 1: So now Australia has a bunch of poisonous toads and
Speaker 1: sometimes people's dogs eat them and trip absolute balls or
Speaker 1: just die. Okay, but caffeine really as an agent for
Speaker 1: toad assassinations. So okay, what happens is concentrated caffeine when
Speaker 1: sprayed around by a professional eco barista if you will,
Speaker 1: causes amphibians to have heart attacks, and they well they
Speaker 1: croak dad word. Really toe the line with that one, kiddos,
Speaker 1: Please don't stop listening. Okay, So concentrated caffeine it gives
Speaker 1: them pretty much like lethal panic attacks. But one can
Speaker 1: spread coffee grounds in the garden and they might just
Speaker 1: get real buzzy and uncomfortable enough to just avoid the area,
Speaker 1: kind of like how I didn't go into a Starbucks
Speaker 1: for a while after a venti induced anxiety meltdown. But
Speaker 1: this could also be just wicked mean to slugs and such,
Speaker 1: because caffeine is a plant's natural defense against getting munched
Speaker 1: on by a lot of critters. Also, this sent me
Speaker 1: down a weird hole learning that a plant can poison
Speaker 1: itself with its own caffeine. So the leaves drop, the
Speaker 1: caffeine leaches into the soil, and the plant is like,
Speaker 1: oh nuts, I brought this on myself now, Okay, if
Speaker 1: killing animals makes you screamish, you could always just exploit
Speaker 1: them for profit and become a drug dealer. So Country
Speaker 1: Farm Lifestyle website offered up the advice of painting chloroform
Speaker 1: on the belly of a cane toad until they start
Speaker 1: oozing milky poison, and then, just like a pimple full
Speaker 1: of money, you can gently express their paratoid gland right
Speaker 1: behind their eyes. But watch your eyes. Wear some cool
Speaker 1: steampunk goggles or something so you don't get splat into
Speaker 1: on the eyeball and then wind up really crying over
Speaker 1: spilt milky white. Also quick aside within this aside a
Speaker 1: side seption if you will. Does Pria have a favorite toad? Yes,
Speaker 1: she has a soft spot. She has a soft warty
Speaker 1: spot for American toads because they were the first she
Speaker 1: saw in the Midwest. But she did clarify that they
Speaker 1: no longer belong to the Buffo genus. North American toads
Speaker 1: are now classified anaxorus, which sounds like a very cool
Speaker 1: rebrand if you ask me, Bufo versus Anaxorus reminds me
Speaker 1: of the time my godfriend Ben wanted us to call
Speaker 1: him Sebastian with an E on the end, but unlike Anaxorus,
Speaker 1: it didn't stick. I'm sorry, Sebastian, sebast Jane.
Speaker 2: They're a little bit fatter and their eyes are just
Speaker 2: a little bit more like bulbous, so I really kind
Speaker 2: of fell in love with them. But there's some really
Speaker 2: pretty toads too, Like in the southwestern US there are
Speaker 2: these green toads and then these red spotted toads, and
Speaker 2: they're just yeah, there can be really pretty, especially in
Speaker 2: South America. Like I haven't seen like all the buffon
Speaker 2: and species you know that are done there. I mean
Speaker 2: it would take you know, millions of years. There's so
Speaker 2: many species of toads all over the world, but they
Speaker 2: are really diverse and interesting.
Speaker 1: Ps how many species of toad are out there, hop
Speaker 1: and around and frowning. It's over six hundred and some
Speaker 1: look like dead leaves with a face, and some are
Speaker 1: beautiful rainbow colors. Some we haven't even discovered yet. Right now,
Speaker 1: just kicking it in a hollow, I think, is that
Speaker 1: where toads live? Do they live in toad hollows? Do
Speaker 1: they live in a little like carbons spots and trees
Speaker 1: and stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, pretty much in burrows of different sorts. Some
Speaker 2: of them can do a little bit of digging, but
Speaker 2: a lot of times they'll live in other you know,
Speaker 2: mammal burrows and things like that.
Speaker 1: Okay, So for more on being roommates with a gopher tortoise.
Speaker 1: See the test Studonology episode with Amanda Hips. Also, I
Speaker 1: just tried to google toads plus friends plus inner species,
Speaker 1: and I'll be honest, not much popped up. I guess
Speaker 1: it's lonely, being horny and toxic. And if you've already
Speaker 1: heard the thermophysiology episode with doctor Shane Campbell Stayton, you
Speaker 1: might know a little bit about wood frog anti freeze.
Speaker 1: But how do toads get houga aka higgy with it
Speaker 1: that Scandinavian word for cozy in the winter? Do they
Speaker 1: knit chunky turtlenecks and sip hot table wine out of
Speaker 1: a crockpot? Do they all peace out to condos in
Speaker 1: Florida when it gets chilly? What happens?
Speaker 2: They don't freeze like some frog species can totally freeze
Speaker 2: in the winter, like they produce this anti freeze. But
Speaker 2: toads don't do that. They just go underground, like below
Speaker 2: the frost line where it's just warm enough that they
Speaker 2: can survive through the winter and they hibernate. But they yeah,
Speaker 2: but they don't freeze, so they just live underground.
Speaker 1: And I need you to settle something for me that
Speaker 1: has been plaguing me for a long time. Okay, and
Speaker 1: you love toads, you've studied my dudes.
Speaker 2: Yes, true or false?
Speaker 1: Toads have arms. Yes they do, Okay, thank you. I
Speaker 1: don't feel like toads have four legs. I feel like
Speaker 1: they have two legs and two arms.
Speaker 2: They do.
Speaker 1: Toads have arms.
Speaker 2: They do have arms. I mean they're like little popeye
Speaker 2: arms right, Like couldn't you just see a little tattoo
Speaker 2: on those little forearms. They're so fat and the males
Speaker 2: have fatter forearms on purpose, like to clutch yeah on
Speaker 2: the ladies and they, yeah, they have arms.
Speaker 1: Okay, thank you, and tell me you will.
Speaker 2: See it like in different places and references about their their.
Speaker 1: Arms and like really, so is that official.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna say it is.
Speaker 1: Because I just cannot accept that those are legs. It's
Speaker 1: not our legs work.
Speaker 2: No, yeah, like they're not even really four legs. They
Speaker 2: really look like yeah they're they're yeah, they're like little
Speaker 2: wrestler arms. Yeah, totally, the little hands like they do
Speaker 2: they do, they really do have.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Okay, that makes me feel better. Okay, so quick aside,
Speaker 1: I look this up and they are called arms. They
Speaker 1: are called arms. I went into this thinking this was
Speaker 1: a battle I had to fight. I was willing to
Speaker 1: die and leave my corpse on this hill that toads
Speaker 1: have arms, and instead no one wanted to fight me.
Speaker 1: It's just a known thing. They have a humorous They
Speaker 1: have a fused radius and olma bones and four fingers
Speaker 1: just like us. The only thing they can't do is
Speaker 1: give me a knowing appreciative thumbs up, because technically their
Speaker 1: thumbs aren't opposable anyway. Moving on, so, Priya has done
Speaker 1: a lot of work with a lot of amphibians, namely salamanders,
Speaker 1: but her field work helping collect toad data made her
Speaker 1: love them even more.
Speaker 2: Just a little ways into the season, the toads would
Speaker 2: come in and they would just be everywhere, and they
Speaker 2: were just so fun to watch, and they just, you know,
Speaker 2: that have these big like orgies. You know, just the
Speaker 2: eggs were everywhere, and then the tadpoles would be everywhere,
Speaker 2: and there's probably at least a couple of sites where
Speaker 2: they're probably was close to one hundred toads, and you know,
Speaker 2: hopping across roads. Whenever we would see them, we would,
Speaker 2: you know, we'd measure them and determine the sex and
Speaker 2: just kind of look for overall these sort of health
Speaker 2: of the animal. And we were doing that in general
Speaker 2: for the other curtis too, because we were finding some
Speaker 2: in some cases, like some different malformations with some of
Speaker 2: the frog species, but we didn't really find that with
Speaker 2: the toads, which is interesting. We definitely saw a lot
Speaker 2: of them, you know, just just out and about and
Speaker 2: just hopping along. You can really find them when they're breeding,
Speaker 2: you know, when they come to the ponds to breed.
Speaker 2: You'll find them like just hopping around in the woods.
Speaker 2: But just very randomly like once they once they come
Speaker 2: in and they do that and then they get out,
Speaker 2: they just are you don't really know like where they are,
Speaker 2: what they're doing, and like I just imagine them like
Speaker 2: underground and they're burrows just having like little you know,
Speaker 2: socials and you know, like little underground bars and just
Speaker 2: chilling out, you know, like all winter.
Speaker 1: And are they solitary or do they or did they
Speaker 1: burrow with friends? Do you think? I wonder if they have.
Speaker 2: I don't think there are some records of them like
Speaker 2: in sharing burrows with other toads. And we actually found
Speaker 2: a multiple species like hybernaculum. But I do think that
Speaker 2: there are toads that will share the same types of burrows.
Speaker 2: And then there are some places like where the soil
Speaker 2: is really sandy and they can just kind of shimmy
Speaker 2: down under the sand, especially in the more hotter environments,
Speaker 2: because in a lot of places in the southern US,
Speaker 2: both east and west, they're active pretty much year round,
Speaker 2: or they don't really have much of a hibernation, but
Speaker 2: you know in the northern areas they do they I
Speaker 2: don't know, yeah they do, they do sleep. I've never
Speaker 2: seen a sleeping toe. Yeah, I haven't seen a sleeping.
Speaker 1: Tothe Are they nocturnal or are they out in the day?
Speaker 2: When they first come out, it's usually during the day,
Speaker 2: and they will like just be singing their little hearts
Speaker 2: out like all during the day. Then they kind of
Speaker 2: shift to just calling at night, and so you don't
Speaker 2: really hear them during the day, but you'll see them
Speaker 2: out there sometimes. And we definitely, like when we go
Speaker 2: out in the field to our sites during the daytime,
Speaker 2: we would see the toads just everywhere, and they weren't
Speaker 2: always calling by that point. But then if you came
Speaker 2: to the same pond that night. You know, they would
Speaker 2: just be singing like crazy, and so it's cool.
Speaker 1: Oh, listen to these beautiful sounds. That is nature's way
Speaker 1: of singing. I'm pretty horny. I'm over here. I'm ready
Speaker 1: to be a dad to thousands of kids I'll never
Speaker 1: meet once again of ver horny. Well, now that's a
Speaker 1: fine horny toad, and I want to bet ps where
Speaker 1: does the word horny come from? I thought maybe i'd
Speaker 1: wander down a lush forest of buffhological etymology. It turns
Speaker 1: out horny toads aren't even toads. They're just another name
Speaker 1: for the horned lizard. They just call these spiky necked
Speaker 1: Southwestern lizards toads because they have kind of a stout body. So,
Speaker 1: good morning, world, we've been lied to for generations. Let's
Speaker 1: get back to our real friends, the toads and their
Speaker 1: robust sexuality.
Speaker 3: Talk to me.
Speaker 1: About toad romance. You mentioned the word orgy. Let's revisit that.
Speaker 2: Yes, sure, let's do that.
Speaker 1: What is happen when toads, they'll get together to make
Speaker 1: more toads.
Speaker 2: When toads start wanting to get their freak on, they
Speaker 2: are like so indiscriminate. Sometimes like they will. I've seen
Speaker 2: a toad andplexing a rock. One time, I was like
Speaker 2: taking temperature of the water and there were some toads nearby,
Speaker 2: and this little toad hopped up and like grabbed onto
Speaker 2: my fingers. They are so funny and and you know,
Speaker 2: they they get all territorial and they you know, if
Speaker 2: they think, like in that case, obviously they thought I
Speaker 2: was like, you know, I gotta get on that thing.
Speaker 2: That thing was made that. But but sometimes you know,
Speaker 2: they're just like you know, defending their territory and they
Speaker 2: do that thing that like I said, they puff up
Speaker 2: and as I picked it up, like they do this
Speaker 2: little release call, like the American toads make this little
Speaker 2: like like little thing like that, like a.
Speaker 1: Version of a car alarm. Let's hear that, shall we?
Speaker 1: Pria says that release call essentially translates to oops, nope,
Speaker 1: I'm a boy toad, Please don't mount me, bro, thanks buddy.
Speaker 2: Like thet's just a little trill like as I was
Speaker 2: holding it, and yeah, I fell in love a little
Speaker 2: bit more of that day. But it they are just
Speaker 2: like on everything and so and because the males are
Speaker 2: also really competitive to get the females. There's usually like
Speaker 2: three or four on the females, and we definitely would
Speaker 2: find sometimes like half drowned females. And this happens with
Speaker 2: frogs other frog species too, but like where the there's
Speaker 2: so many males, they basically are like weighing her down
Speaker 2: and then her head is like staying underwater. You know,
Speaker 2: they breathe air, so they like so she's getting drowned
Speaker 2: by all these aggressive fuckers.
Speaker 1: So these eager dudes.
Speaker 2: Number and she's just like, look, yeah, I got I
Speaker 2: got one, and she's gonna.
Speaker 1: Squirt out some eggs and then they're just gonna go
Speaker 1: by and season them sort of.
Speaker 2: Well yeah, and they do have external fertilization. I mean
Speaker 2: that's you know, part of the strategies. They're just sort
Speaker 2: of hanging out and then they'll be like ones that'll
Speaker 2: just be like sitting there like waiting, you know, for
Speaker 2: the one to hop off so that the next one
Speaker 2: can hop on.
Speaker 1: And Okay, tell me if I'm hallucinating. Is there a
Speaker 1: type of toad where the baby toads are berthed from
Speaker 1: holes in the back or was that an American corr story?
Speaker 2: No, No, those are those are a different family so
Speaker 2: they're not bufon ands, they're not true toads, but they
Speaker 2: are called like the surinam toad. And yeah that, oh man,
Speaker 2: that's like the craziest like reproductive strategy. They'll lay the
Speaker 2: eggs and they'll be fertilized, and then they like scoop
Speaker 2: them up with their legs onto their back, and then
Speaker 2: their back like the chemistry of the skin changes and
Speaker 2: it basically like absorbs the eggs into their back and
Speaker 2: then the skin grows over the back, over the top
Speaker 2: of it. It's like some serious sci fi shit. And
Speaker 2: then and then when they get ready to hatch, they
Speaker 2: hatch out as like little live it's not even tadpoles.
Speaker 2: It's like little live baby toads, and they just start
Speaker 2: cracking out of the mom's back. God's so crazy.
Speaker 1: That is such a horror show. I mean, it works
Speaker 1: for them in good fields.
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, but I mean, and it's it's really cool though. Actually,
Speaker 2: like we use that a lot in like outreach with
Speaker 2: kids as an example of just amphibian like cool you
Speaker 2: know adaptations that they have and they're always like ew,
Speaker 2: let's see it again, you know. So, but yeah, that
Speaker 2: one's a really freaky one. But yeah, those are not
Speaker 2: true toads, though those are those are in the Pipidae family. Okay, fanitay, Okay.
Speaker 1: So I look this up and as a person who
Speaker 1: has relaxed to dozens and dozens of videos of blackhead
Speaker 1: extractions and bought fly maggots under human skin, shout out
Speaker 1: to lepidopterologist Philteraurus for fostering one in his back recently,
Speaker 1: and my personal favorite mango worm extraction. I found this
Speaker 1: surname toad thing revolting. First off, it just looks like
Speaker 1: a frog who's been flattened by a mallet but came
Speaker 1: back as a muddy, angry ghost. The surname toad scientifically
Speaker 1: known as people pipa. Pipa means kite because it's flat
Speaker 1: and pointy. It looks like an angular roast chicken breast
Speaker 1: with webbed feet and like a mesh tank. Top of
Speaker 1: skin is its back. It's riddled with holes out of
Speaker 1: which flailing, squirming mini toads emerge in a fury, like
Speaker 1: a jail break. It's a nightmare you cannot imagine. And
Speaker 1: if you have that fear of holes whatever that's called,
Speaker 1: get a restraining order against a species I have met
Speaker 1: my match. This is disgusting. Also, not even really a toad,
Speaker 1: it's an aquatic frog. Get out of here. Let's get
Speaker 1: back to toads. God, this was gross, I mean beautiful,
Speaker 1: but very upsetting. Let's talk toad licking. Oh yeah, who's
Speaker 1: doing it? And why?
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a lot of people that are doing it
Speaker 2: and they probably shouldn't be doing it. But yeah, so
Speaker 2: there's only one toad in the US that produces that
Speaker 2: gular type of it's a boof photox. And you can't
Speaker 2: just like lick the toad. You will not be very
Speaker 2: comfortable if you just lick the toad.
Speaker 1: Again, do not lick the toad. Why consider this story
Speaker 1: a PSA against toad basing.
Speaker 2: We were driving down this little golf course where another
Speaker 2: colleague of mine had these rattlesnakes teleimited, you know, tagged,
Speaker 2: so we could track them. And I saw this thing
Speaker 2: hopping along and I was like, what is that a bunny?
Speaker 2: And he was like, those are the Sonoran desert toads.
Speaker 2: And I was like, what those are those toads the
Speaker 2: ones that you can lick, And he was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: those are those ones. And so when we like had
Speaker 2: to stop and we went and checked them out. He's like, Okay,
Speaker 2: now you gotta really wash your hands, like here's some
Speaker 2: purel and whatever, and like later on, I just like
Speaker 2: I think I just kind of like rubbed my nose
Speaker 2: or did something like that, and it was like really burning,
Speaker 2: like just from that little bit that was probably still
Speaker 2: on my hands, and thankfully I didn't touch my eyes.
Speaker 2: But like that can can be a real problem. I
Speaker 2: think the indigenous people had learned how to basically harvest
Speaker 2: it and then and I think you have to dry
Speaker 2: it and process it a little bit before you can
Speaker 2: actually use it in those ways for you know, to
Speaker 2: have the true hallucinogenic experience.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so you have to kind of milk them
Speaker 1: by stressing them out probably a little.
Speaker 2: Bit pretty much. Yeah, but I think they just they
Speaker 2: do have like a fair bit just on them. They're
Speaker 2: pretty gnarly. But yeah, I don't think it takes much
Speaker 2: to stress them out. You could see, like certain toads,
Speaker 2: you can actually see the secretion. It's like this milky
Speaker 2: stuff coming out.
Speaker 1: You just have to sit talk their moms. They're like.
Speaker 2: Come flowing out exactly. But yeah, So there are these
Speaker 2: stories though that people like will do it in such
Speaker 2: a way that they can still get a high and
Speaker 2: just keep the toad so that they can like kind
Speaker 2: of harvest it. And I'm sure, you know, people have
Speaker 2: studied like all of these different ways of how you
Speaker 2: can make it happen, But I have not experienced the
Speaker 2: toad high.
Speaker 1: I wonder if people on YouTube are like, listen, oh,
Speaker 1: yar what you do.
Speaker 2: I'm sure you will, and I'm looking forward to learning
Speaker 2: more about that.
Speaker 1: Oh you know, I will. Okay. So the Colorado River
Speaker 1: toad or the Sonoran Desert toad, same thing. They're native
Speaker 1: to what's now northern Mexico and the southwestern United States.
Speaker 1: So these produce a poison that has a form of
Speaker 1: the psychedelic substance DMT, which is produced in humans naturally,
Speaker 1: but like during a dream state and maybe when you.
Speaker 3: Die god hearing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, do not go milking and licking it. That's not
Speaker 1: going to work. For thousands of years, indigenous cultures have
Speaker 1: perfected the harvesting and the drying and the smoking of
Speaker 1: this angry toad juice, and what is said to result
Speaker 1: is everything from like a powerful love and oneness with
Speaker 1: nature to feeling like dying and a rebirth to seeing
Speaker 1: geometric aliens chirping, Well, it comes into another dimension. Did
Speaker 1: I mention, don't lick a toad? Don't try this on
Speaker 1: your own. This is not a pinteresque diy hack to
Speaker 1: diddle with on the weekend. Respect the culture, Respect the history,
Speaker 1: Respect the toad. What about toads in popular culture? How
Speaker 1: do you feel about the children's book series Frog and Toad.
Speaker 3: Toad, Toad, the sun is shining, the snow is melting,
Speaker 3: wake up.
Speaker 2: Oh I am not here. Oh my god. One of
Speaker 2: my favorite books, like for real, like even before I
Speaker 2: really became like a toad lover, like, it was just
Speaker 2: one of my favorite books. I just loved the little
Speaker 2: relationship that they had and how Toad was always so grumpy.
Speaker 2: But yeah, so I had for Frog and Toad or friends,
Speaker 2: and then that became the book that I gave all
Speaker 2: my friends when they started having kids and stuff. There's
Speaker 2: a lot of vilifying of toads in pop culture. I
Speaker 2: feel like, you know, like the whole thing about getting
Speaker 2: worts from toads, which of course you can't.
Speaker 1: You can't.
Speaker 2: They can't.
Speaker 1: They're not viral. It's just part of their back.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're just they're just trying to protect themselves. They're
Speaker 2: just trying to make sure that nobody eats them. That's all,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 4: Also, stop licking them if you don't want to get
Speaker 4: any Yeah, diseasell A lot worse things you can get
Speaker 4: from licking a toad, like Salmonella's among other things.
Speaker 1: Among the other things is a strain of chlamydia and
Speaker 1: a bunch of bacterial infections I can't pronounce. So don't
Speaker 1: lick toads. No one wants to get toad chlamydia. You
Speaker 1: want to tell people you got toad chlamydia. Also, what
Speaker 1: is the state of the toad these days? How are toads?
Speaker 1: Do they need us? Do they hate us?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 1: I know that cane toads are having a heyday, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's the It is the era of the cane toad.
Speaker 1: But how in general are toads faring these days?
Speaker 2: It depends. So some of the species of toads have
Speaker 2: been hit pretty hard by the kittrid fungus, the amphibian
Speaker 2: kytrid fungus, but track a Kittrium dender baddess that's quite
Speaker 2: a mouthful or BD for short. In Central America especially,
Speaker 2: there's a couple of the Adylopus genus species that have
Speaker 2: that are thought to be extinct. Now there's a golden
Speaker 2: toad that's in the Inscillus genus from Costa Rica, that is,
Speaker 2: it was like their iconic toad species, and they think
Speaker 2: that that's extinct. I think there's they've found like maybe
Speaker 2: a couple of individuals here and there of all of
Speaker 2: these different species. But yeah, but they're they've gone extinct.
Speaker 2: It's because of this fungus, this fungal pathogen. So have
Speaker 2: you heard of like white nose and bats. So this
Speaker 2: actually came before and then like the people in the
Speaker 2: white nose world like learned from that, but it took
Speaker 2: the b D world, the amphibian world, like a really
Speaker 2: long time to figure out that it was this fungal pathogen.
Speaker 2: It was described as a new species once they figured
Speaker 2: out that that's what it was. But it's been responsible
Speaker 2: for well, it's questionable, but there's there's a recent paper
Speaker 2: that says that there's like five hundred species that have
Speaker 2: declined throughout the world on that because of BD. But
Speaker 2: there's some question about that a little bit, so at
Speaker 2: least most people say like around like two hundred or
Speaker 2: so species that have declined orgone extinct specifically because of
Speaker 2: the impacts of BD and in the US in particular,
Speaker 2: some of our toad species have been the ones that
Speaker 2: have been most impacted. So the boreal toads, like I
Speaker 2: was saying, the western toads, and there's a Wyoming toad
Speaker 2: that's related as well, and it just has a very
Speaker 2: small distribution in Wyoming and it's also been impacted. And
Speaker 2: so there's all these like recovery programs going on for
Speaker 2: those two toad species. They were raising them in captivity
Speaker 2: and you know, having good success with that, but then
Speaker 2: when they put them back out in the habitat, they
Speaker 2: would die because this fungal pathogen remains in the habitat.
Speaker 2: So once it's out there, it's really hard to you know,
Speaker 2: to figure out like how you can get them back
Speaker 2: out there. So they're trying a bunch of different things
Speaker 2: to maybe see how they how they can help them
Speaker 2: to persist with it. So disease issues are are something
Speaker 2: that has impacted our toads. There's multiple strains that are
Speaker 2: being documented now. There was an out of Asian and
Speaker 2: out of Africa hypothesis that were kind of competing for
Speaker 2: a while, and I believe they still have determined that
Speaker 2: it came out of Asia. But because of trade is
Speaker 2: why this thing is moving around. And in fact, with
Speaker 2: BD they would use those African claude frogs, do you
Speaker 2: know what I'm talking about. They're fully aquatic with claws
Speaker 2: like you'll see them like in Asian markets. They're established
Speaker 2: in Los Angeles, are somewhere down around there like in
Speaker 2: the wild. Yeah, there's a population down there and in
Speaker 2: a few other places in the US. But anyway, they
Speaker 2: were used as pregnancy tests. Wait what so these are
Speaker 2: not toads, but these frogs were used as pregnancy tests.
Speaker 2: And what they would do is they would take they
Speaker 2: would have them in a doctor's office, you know, and
Speaker 2: then a woman who thought she was pregnant, they would
Speaker 2: take her urine sample and inject it into the frog
Speaker 2: and if it laid eggs, then she was pregnant. And
Speaker 2: so no, of course, after they were done with these frogs,
Speaker 2: they would just like chuck them outside. Oh dear, Yeah,
Speaker 2: and so many of these had those obviously came from Africa,
Speaker 2: but they were carrying this fungal pathogen and apparently can
Speaker 2: like they're resistant or they you know, they can persist
Speaker 2: with it, and so they were then spreading it to
Speaker 2: all the native species.
Speaker 1: So this was an awful practice, but at the time
Speaker 1: it seemed favorable to the older way, which was injecting
Speaker 1: a live rabbit with prego pee, waiting a couple of days,
Speaker 1: killing it and then examining its ovaries, or or you
Speaker 1: could pee on wheat and just see how long it
Speaker 1: takes to germinate. So if you're ever in a position
Speaker 1: to pee on a drug store stick, I guess just
Speaker 1: be glad you're not waiting for seeds to sprout, or
Speaker 1: like actively murdering a bunny other than fungus and old
Speaker 1: timey pregnant ladies and I guess really desperate fish fans.
Speaker 1: What are the predators of toads?
Speaker 2: Oh, there are various birds and snakes that will eat toads.
Speaker 2: Hog noo snakes are kind of toads specialists. The toxin
Speaker 2: doesn't seem to bother them, so they're able to manage
Speaker 2: with them. But crows, which are super smart as you know,
Speaker 2: will like eviscerate toads and then just eat their guy insides.
Speaker 2: My gosh, yeah, that's what I.
Speaker 1: Do with airport sandwiches, I just eat the middle.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right exactly. That's what I do too, because I
Speaker 2: try not to eat as much bread anymore. So I
Speaker 2: just eat like the cheese and the Sometimes.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna fall asleep if I eat this whole pretzel
Speaker 1: roll with the inside.
Speaker 2: So you eviscerate your sandwiches.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So they just on zip them in the belly
Speaker 1: pretty much.
Speaker 2: They just go for the little soft part right there
Speaker 2: and then they just like you know, pick them open
Speaker 2: and just the I mean, like and it's sometimes it's
Speaker 2: like you can see it's like a little shirt that
Speaker 2: has been removed, you know what I mean. Like I've
Speaker 2: seen some toads out there where they've pulled off the
Speaker 2: skin in such a way that it looks like they're
Speaker 2: just stuck with their shirt like a buff over their head,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean. And my god, and raccoons
Speaker 2: will do that a little bit sometimes, like they'll they'll
Speaker 2: bite off like the head or the legs and then
Speaker 2: spit them out and then they'll just like you know,
Speaker 2: clow out or suck out the insides. And so we'll
Speaker 2: see these like half eaten toads and stuff in the
Speaker 2: breeding season, especially because you know, they're like, oh smrgas.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, it's like a it's like a shrimp avan,
Speaker 1: a crucious going for it exactly. Oh my gosh. Okay,
Speaker 1: now toads in pop culture? Toads? Are there any any
Speaker 1: toads in movies?
Speaker 2: Oh, there's a whole like cane toad movie. Do you
Speaker 2: not know about this toad? Oh my god, you have to.
Speaker 2: It's like Attack of the Killer Toads or something. I
Speaker 2: think if you look it up you'll find it. But
Speaker 2: it's all about these cane toads, and it's it's hilarious.
Speaker 2: It's like such a great like classic B movie.
Speaker 4: When I'm driving a car, I have no hesitation of
Speaker 4: running over them whatsoever.
Speaker 2: I couldn't do without them. They're friends.
Speaker 1: So she's talking. I think about the very cheesy nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty eight documentary Cane Toads and Unnatural History, which I
Speaker 1: would very very much like to just kick back and
Speaker 1: watch these cane toads. Man, who I had no idea.
Speaker 2: I think the biggest toad. Cane toads are the biggest toads,
Speaker 2: and they can like I think the record is like
Speaker 2: three pounds or something like that.
Speaker 1: It's an absolute unit toad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, completely.
Speaker 1: Would you ever keep one as a pet?
Speaker 2: No, you know, everybody asked me that and I never
Speaker 2: I never have.
Speaker 1: So no, no pet toads for prey, as she prefers
Speaker 1: to see him hopping about and just enjoying the wild
Speaker 1: having their orgies, one of which was recently captured as
Speaker 1: ten cane toads. At once we're writing a pithon bear
Speaker 1: back in Australia. It looked like toads on the subway
Speaker 1: home from work, but what was really happening was not commuting.
Speaker 1: The python just didn't have that release call churep if
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. But let's say you'd like
Speaker 1: to have more outdoor pals and you're not a python,
Speaker 1: how can you make your backyard a haven for toads?
Speaker 1: So you've turned over a pot in the garden and
Speaker 1: then did you carve out like a little toad door? No?
Speaker 2: Like you just I think I actually like you. They
Speaker 2: have this stuff like at the nature centers, like these
Speaker 2: little guidance type things. But you can like bury a
Speaker 2: pot like halfway so that it's like becomes like a
Speaker 2: little tunnel, you know what I mean. You can find
Speaker 2: these little like designs that are out there for these
Speaker 2: little toad homes. And they even make like actual like
Speaker 2: terra cotta toad homes. Like yeah, So.
Speaker 1: Do yourself one favor today and look up the hashtag
Speaker 1: toad abodes. Oh what a site, What a site for
Speaker 1: sad hearts. Just all it's a pottery in the shape
Speaker 1: of mushroom houses, toads, road houses, little ceramic cottages for
Speaker 1: wardy locals. Several times a day since seeing that, I
Speaker 1: just stare off. I think of all the toads and
Speaker 1: all the little houses all over the world. Taking a snooze.
Speaker 1: All right, let's Pepperperia with some questions. Are you ready
Speaker 1: for Patreon questions?
Speaker 2: I think so.
Speaker 1: But before I ask the questions that you submitted patrons,
Speaker 1: a few quick messages about sponsors of the show who
Speaker 1: make it possible for us to make a donation each
Speaker 1: week to the cause of the Ologists Choosing. So this
Speaker 1: week Pria requested a donation to be made to the
Speaker 1: Amphibian and Reptile Conservancy to support inclusivity and diversity initiatives
Speaker 1: in amphibian and reptile conservation. So thank you, Pria. Also,
Speaker 1: if you like ologies, I think you would dig a
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Speaker 1: but it's about the science and history of food, and
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Speaker 1: all right, your questions, all right, Patreon questions, We got
Speaker 1: a ton okay.
Speaker 2: Really yes that quickly?
Speaker 1: Yest to them. Okay, okay. Jack kelliher asks life cycle
Speaker 1: of a toad same as similar to a frog? Or
Speaker 1: do they live longer shorter than a frog? Do you think?
Speaker 2: Oh? Well, I think it depends on the species. And
Speaker 2: you know, some frogs live pretty long. Some some toads
Speaker 2: live pretty long, but but you know, kind of on
Speaker 2: average in that sort of five ish seven ish, you know,
Speaker 2: tennish range of years. But life cycle yeah, very fairly
Speaker 2: similar to a frog, because you know, they are frogs.
Speaker 1: They are frog.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So they will like mostly be on land until
Speaker 2: it's breeding season, you know, or like be hibernating or whatever,
Speaker 2: and then they'll come to the ponds for that breeding season.
Speaker 2: They'll call attract their mate. There are some toads that
Speaker 2: don't call, and they're, oh my god, I can't. There
Speaker 2: are some toads that will do that leg waving thing.
Speaker 2: You know. Have you ever seen that? Oh my god,
Speaker 2: you have to.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So they like in these like stream environments where it's
Speaker 2: so loud because of all this stream noise, they have
Speaker 2: evolved this like they just they literally take their back
Speaker 2: leg and they just like go like this.
Speaker 1: By the way, is laying on the hotel room bed
Speaker 1: doing a move that looks like part synchronized swimming but
Speaker 1: also part shipwreck victim.
Speaker 2: And I think in some of them it's their front
Speaker 2: leg maybe too, but they anyway or their arms. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and they they just like they're like, hey, I'm.
Speaker 1: Over here, god, like hailing a cab.
Speaker 2: Yes, and then some you know, chick tota is walking
Speaker 2: by and just like, oh, oh okay, I see you.
Speaker 1: I never that they did that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so there are so anyways. I kind of digress there.
Speaker 2: But yeah, so generally speaking, they attract their mate. The mate,
Speaker 2: you know, the female comes over and they you know,
Speaker 2: do the deed, and they have mostly external fertilization. There's
Speaker 2: a couple of exceptions. And then you know, they lay
Speaker 2: their eggs, and mostly most of the species like lay
Speaker 2: a lot of eggs and maybe you'll have a pretty
Speaker 2: decent amount of the eggs that will hatchet to tadpoles.
Speaker 2: But then like the tadpoles are food for all sorts
Speaker 2: of stuff. Oh delicious, Oh my god. Have you ever
Speaker 2: seen like all little toadlet's popping on?
Speaker 1: Are they really called toadlets?
Speaker 2: Yes, oh good toadlets, and they are. They are so tiny,
Speaker 2: but they're just like they're the cutest frickin' things.
Speaker 1: Frederick Roy wants to know are there any studies on
Speaker 1: the possible medical applications of toad toxins.
Speaker 2: Yes, I don't know the details of them, but I
Speaker 2: know there's some study on how it affects heart rates,
Speaker 2: and there's kind of like a steroidal element to it,
Speaker 2: and I think like in the cocktail there's also like
Speaker 2: epinephrine and you know, components and things like that, and
Speaker 2: so in animals and other things that have like experienced
Speaker 2: the toxin coming into contact with the toads, like they
Speaker 2: have these like extended periods of fast heart rate or
Speaker 2: sometimes they have like a really slowed heart rate, And
Speaker 2: so I think they're studying like maybe there's a way
Speaker 2: to kind of like hone that in there's some cool
Speaker 2: stuff going on.
Speaker 1: With that ps I gave a quick Google just to
Speaker 1: make sure, and yep, sure thing. Plenty of research being
Speaker 1: done on toad toxins as anti inflammatory agents, cardiac activity regulators,
Speaker 1: and anti cancer agents. So the future is toads. I'd
Speaker 1: love to see a prescription pad that just had just
Speaker 1: said to toad two licks a day, Good morning. Heather
Speaker 1: Albricks says, what are toad communities?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: I always see toads on the ground blazing their own trails,
Speaker 1: but then there's always another little guy not too far away.
Speaker 1: Do they reconvene at the end of the day in
Speaker 1: communal housing? If they survived by lawnmower or do they
Speaker 1: battle it out for prime resources? Do they have friends?
Speaker 2: Do you think they all come together for the breeding season,
Speaker 2: but they're not really like friendly, you know, they're like
Speaker 2: all competing during that time. And it is true that
Speaker 2: you do tend to see them together, and I think
Speaker 2: that is probably because they must like hang out together
Speaker 2: wherever they're you know, overwintering or hanging out during the
Speaker 2: hot months or something.
Speaker 1: Maybe they're in the same hypernaculum, which is my new
Speaker 1: favorite word. Ever. I'm like, literally, I'm gonna get a
Speaker 1: sign from the bedroom just called the hyperdetcula.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's the perfect it's the perfect name for the
Speaker 2: bedroom house.
Speaker 1: Janamee Parrington wants to know why does everyone think toads
Speaker 1: are so much grosser than frogs.
Speaker 2: I don't know, that is such a good question. I
Speaker 2: think it's because of the words. You know, people just think, oh, gross,
Speaker 2: it's all wordy and they don't want to touch it.
Speaker 2: But you know, they're just so like if you just
Speaker 2: actually look at a toad face, no, I mean, they're
Speaker 2: just so cute, so expressive, so expressive, and like you
Speaker 2: you just you kind of know where they stand. And
Speaker 2: I just I love that.
Speaker 1: They're just toads do not suffer fools.
Speaker 2: They do not suffer fools.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Irag Gray wants to know why do toads pee
Speaker 1: on me when I pick them up?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, you're like, yeah.
Speaker 1: That happens.
Speaker 2: That happens all the time. I've got so much toad
Speaker 2: p on me. It's just a defense mechanism, you know,
Speaker 2: they just don't They were like, hey, maybe if I
Speaker 2: p on you, you let me go.
Speaker 1: I mean, who hasn't tried that in a meeting you
Speaker 1: wanted to leave?
Speaker 2: But you know, they just from sitting in a in
Speaker 2: a little puddle of water or something like, they can
Speaker 2: absorb up enough water. So it's unless it's been really dry,
Speaker 2: like you're not really it's it's you don't have to
Speaker 2: worry too much about it. But if you're finding a
Speaker 2: toad like out in the middle of the woods and
Speaker 2: you pick it up and then it peace on you,
Speaker 2: then you might have kind of made its life a
Speaker 2: little bit harder for a little while. Gave a little
Speaker 2: careful of water. Just yeah, just put a little just
Speaker 2: pour a little bit of your water into a little
Speaker 2: bowl and just just like PLoP it in there. Let
Speaker 2: it just reabsorb some more.
Speaker 1: I love that they do that. Yeah, Sarah Terry wants
Speaker 1: to know what what do you think is the most
Speaker 1: poisonous one ever?
Speaker 2: Or rather, that's a good question because like there's you know,
Speaker 2: the different toxin cocktails in these these buffo toxins. I
Speaker 2: think the cane toad is pretty toxic. Yeah, I don't
Speaker 2: know if it's the most toxic though, that's it's a
Speaker 2: good question. But I know that that genus, that Rhinella genus,
Speaker 2: I think a lot of those have like pretty strong toxins.
Speaker 2: I think the inscillus maybe does too. And that's the
Speaker 2: genus of the Sonoran desert toad, the one that is
Speaker 2: the ucinogenic one.
Speaker 1: Shoot, I don't think I've said this yet, but don't
Speaker 1: lick toads. Sarah Peck would like to know if you
Speaker 1: know any toad related magic spells. I'm sure you know. So.
Speaker 2: In Macbeth that same like double Double Toil and Trouble poem,
Speaker 2: at the beginning of it, it talks about a toad
Speaker 2: and like put that in the pot first.
Speaker 1: Toad under Coldstone Fordays and nights thirty.
Speaker 2: Well, they're basically trying to get the toad toxin into
Speaker 2: their oo, which is brue. But I'm sure there are
Speaker 2: other toad poems. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I'm going to look up some toad witch spells.
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's a ton. So I just did a
Speaker 1: little tippy tapping and according to some very helpful occult website,
Speaker 1: during medieval times, toads were seen as satanic creatures, and
Speaker 1: folks thought that witches could like magically cause play as
Speaker 1: toads and then go poison people and just cause general
Speaker 1: toad related mayhem. Although, now that I'm thinking about it,
Speaker 1: that Disney Frog Prince fairy tale of a woman kissing
Speaker 1: a frog and then turning it into some well groomed
Speaker 1: and presumably fiscally stable man was maybe just a parable
Speaker 1: about a hallucination. Who knows. Moving on, I'll pecka paka
Speaker 1: wants to know. Is there a humane way to get
Speaker 1: rid of cane toads or not?
Speaker 2: I know, yeah, probably the most humane way is if
Speaker 2: you could like just collect them all up and like,
Speaker 2: I don't know, freeze them or something. I know, like
Speaker 2: they like slowly slowly turn the temperature down. Yeah, totally freeze.
Speaker 1: I don't know, Just go to sleep, sleep sleep.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well there are you know they actually, you know,
Speaker 2: I don't know. There's this thing that we used to
Speaker 2: use when we were either getting ready to preserve critters,
Speaker 2: liked for pickle jars, and it's this stuff called MS
Speaker 2: Touto too, which I think is like regulated differently now,
Speaker 2: but it's it's kind of like a cocaine relative. You
Speaker 2: just like you would sprinkle a little bit into like
Speaker 2: a jar of water, and you'd put the toad or
Speaker 2: a frog or whatever in and like, after a little while,
Speaker 2: I'm just like, and so if you put in more,
Speaker 2: then it'll feel that way just before it dies, and
Speaker 2: so then it's kind of a peaceful death. So yeah,
Speaker 2: if but there, you probably couldn't do that very easily
Speaker 2: with especially the cane toads as big as they are.
Speaker 2: You'd have to get like big vats of that. Just
Speaker 2: have to literally get like a piles and piles of
Speaker 2: kilos of me.
Speaker 1: You need a tooler. Mark Kenney wants to know do
Speaker 1: toads travel far from their burrow or wherever whatever a
Speaker 1: toad home is called to forage or find a mate?
Speaker 1: How is their commute? What's a toad commute?
Speaker 2: Like? You know, I think generally speaking, their thought to
Speaker 2: be not that they don't move that far, but there
Speaker 2: was recently one of my colleagues in Utah was tracking
Speaker 2: these western toads and found that they moved like five
Speaker 2: or six miles, which you know, a toad that hops,
Speaker 2: like that's a long ass way, like between where their
Speaker 2: breeding site was and where they I think were hanging
Speaker 2: out like in the winter, because they'll go back to
Speaker 2: the same ponds where they emerged to go breed. And
Speaker 2: so when those habitats got fewer and far farther between,
Speaker 2: like if they went back in their pond that they
Speaker 2: know was not there, they'll usually just go a little
Speaker 2: bit further until they find the next thing. And so
Speaker 2: probably like over time, these animals have developed the ability
Speaker 2: to go that far, and especially the ones in these
Speaker 2: montane habitats, you know, like there are a lot fewer areas,
Speaker 2: you know, and a lot more ground to traverse between ponds.
Speaker 2: That was one that I remember was like pretty striking,
Speaker 2: Like I just learned that a couple of years ago
Speaker 2: that those particular ones were able to do that. And
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure that there's nothing in the literature that
Speaker 2: suggests that they go that far do they.
Speaker 1: Have a homing device? How are they finding the same ponds?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think they believe it's a little bit both
Speaker 2: like astrological as well as chemosensory, and they're able to like,
Speaker 2: you know, smell their home ponds basically and go back. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's that's true of a lot of amphibians in general,
Speaker 2: Like they tend to go back to the same and
Speaker 2: actually a lot of reptiles as well, like they'll they'll
Speaker 2: kind of they have sight fidelity.
Speaker 1: I didn't know that's what it was called. Megan Janelle
Speaker 1: Lession asks, in your opinion, what type of toad has
Speaker 1: the most beautiful mating call?
Speaker 2: Oh oh man.
Speaker 1: And and says, some of the best sleep I've ever
Speaker 1: had took place at a little cabin in northern Wisconsin.
Speaker 1: And I specifically remember the toad songs being extreme.
Speaker 2: I do really love the American toad call. It's just
Speaker 2: that long trill. It's so pretty. Have you heard it?
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 1: Priya offered to do a toad trill and I said, yes, please,
Speaker 1: Oh my.
Speaker 2: God, that one is a very soothing one. Like there's
Speaker 2: another relative, the woodhouses toad or the Fowler's toad. They
Speaker 2: sound like a woman or a child being murdered. Seriously,
Speaker 2: Like I have been out in the woods with other
Speaker 2: herpetologists and we're like, oh my god, there's a woman
Speaker 2: in trouble. And we're like, oh, no, shit, that's just
Speaker 2: a fower's toad. Oh my god, just hord toads.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh god.
Speaker 2: So those are the not soothing ones.
Speaker 1: In all of this praise of toads. Something's gotta suck.
Speaker 1: They've got to be ad dick to someone what is
Speaker 1: wrong with a toad? There's got to be something you
Speaker 1: disc like about toads, or about just in general toading,
Speaker 1: toad tripping.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think the worst quality of a toad
Speaker 2: is that they just they try to be so tough,
Speaker 2: like just just admit it, Like you're just a soft,
Speaker 2: little sweet thing, Like just admit it. You know, this
Speaker 2: is what this is again like where my romantic life comes.
Speaker 2: But like, I know you're trying to be all tough
Speaker 2: and badass, but you're not. You're not all that tough
Speaker 2: and bad ass. Like just be soft, just be It's
Speaker 2: okay that you're soft. I see your soft belly. It's
Speaker 2: all good, all right.
Speaker 1: And what about the fact that you got sexually assaulted
Speaker 1: by it.
Speaker 2: Well, see, that's also Yeah, they're pretty they're pretty aggressive.
Speaker 1: So forgivable.
Speaker 2: Okay, No, that's that's pretty bad. You're right. What else though,
Speaker 2: I think.
Speaker 1: When you're out toad hunting, Yeah, well the tox is.
Speaker 1: But what about when you're out toad hunting? Are you
Speaker 1: out there in the middle of the night, are you
Speaker 1: are you slopping around in boots?
Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah, in the in boots at night, headlamp, trying
Speaker 2: to like take the females heads out of the water
Speaker 2: so that they don't die. Yeah, you're out.
Speaker 1: When you're out frogging and toading at night and you're
Speaker 1: in hip waiters in boots. Do you bring along like
Speaker 1: a thermos of hot tea or anything? What are the
Speaker 1: creature comforts out there?
Speaker 2: Well, you know, once it gets to be around toad season,
Speaker 2: like the nights are relatively warm, or at least they
Speaker 2: were out in Maryland. So yeah, so it's kind of
Speaker 2: nice being out at night. You know, it's like those
Speaker 2: like sort of warmish nights. I mean, there were definitely
Speaker 2: some days, like one of my friends and I in
Speaker 2: grad school, we would just like we wouldn't even wear boots.
Speaker 2: There's these like monky ponds, and we would just take
Speaker 2: off the waiters because they would get stuck in the muck,
Speaker 2: and we would just go barefoot in like in shorts
Speaker 2: and and just like yeah, just kind of like become
Speaker 2: one with the and they would be like all around
Speaker 2: you and other frogs and stuff too. And then you
Speaker 2: get to see like things swimming in the water, like turtles.
Speaker 1: And now, uh do we say favorite thing about a toad?
Speaker 1: So hard to pick. Do you have a favorite thing
Speaker 1: the one thing about a toad that you love the most,
Speaker 1: or about your job as a herper?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 2: What is my favorite thing about a toad? I don't know,
Speaker 2: there's just I just I just love their little bodies.
Speaker 2: They're little, that classic toad shape and just the little
Speaker 2: hop and the face, you know, just that little classic
Speaker 2: toad face. You're gonna get all these comments afterwards, like
Speaker 2: oh my god, I can't believe shouldn't say about this
Speaker 2: shitty thing that a toad does, like I know, oh
Speaker 2: my god. But speaking of that though, they do, like
Speaker 2: so they pee, but you have to look up a
Speaker 2: toad pooping well, like the deal they're they have the
Speaker 2: biggest shit, like they poop out these logs that are
Speaker 2: seriously like a third to half of their body length.
Speaker 2: I'm telling you, it is the craziest thing. I've only
Speaker 2: seen it once, only once, like in the wild, but
Speaker 2: like videos, yeah, you have to google that.
Speaker 1: Oh of course I looked this up.
Speaker 2: I mean I think they just eat a lot in
Speaker 2: one sitting and then they like hop around and then
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, like the one that I saw,
Speaker 2: like it started just doing this weird like crunching thing,
Speaker 2: you know, kind of like a dog gets ready to
Speaker 2: poop and like it. And then all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: was like, oh my god, it's pooping. And then this
Speaker 2: thing like just kept fucking coming out and it was
Speaker 2: this huge ass shit like, yeah, you have to see.
Speaker 1: Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy. Okay, I guess if
Speaker 1: you take nothing else away from this episode, it's just
Speaker 1: that toads make turts. I of course I sought out
Speaker 1: video proof and was instantly furnished with some YouTube gems,
Speaker 1: such as one titled toad pooping a giant turd.
Speaker 2: Look at the size of it flowed.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, dude, it's like he's laboring it out.
Speaker 1: It's almost like he's given and yet another small film
Speaker 1: called toad taking a massive shit. How much it's an
Speaker 1: impossible seeming volume in a human scale, you would easily
Speaker 1: need a second toilet. Let's move on, And you are
Speaker 1: my favorite boophologist. You're my favorite toad lover on the planet.
Speaker 2: I'm the only one you know, aren't I?
Speaker 1: That is true, but you're also in my favor. So
Speaker 1: ask smart people stupid questions and follow Priya Nujapa on
Speaker 1: Twitter at totally Pria t O A D A L
Speaker 1: L Y Pria. And also you're gonna want to follow
Speaker 1: her on Instagram at Wild Beautiful World because she mentioned
Speaker 1: she might get a toad tattoo on her toe and
Speaker 1: that then she would be tattoed. Follow her and love her. Okay.
Speaker 1: Links to those accounts will be in the show notes,
Speaker 1: and they will be up at my website at aliward
Speaker 1: dot com slash ologies. I'm at ologies on Twitter and Instagram.
Speaker 1: I'm at ali Ward with one L on both and
Speaker 1: if you're looking for less adult science content, I'm also
Speaker 1: on the Netflix show Brainchild, which is a science show.
Speaker 1: I host the CW science show did I Mention Invention?
Speaker 1: I'm also on Innovation Nation with Moroca on CBS every
Speaker 1: Saturday morning. So thank you also to Aaron Talbert and
Speaker 1: Hannah Liippo for admining the Ologies podcast Facebook group. Thank
Speaker 1: you Shannon Feltis and Bonnie Dutch for all of your
Speaker 1: super hard work making the Ologies Merch site run. You
Speaker 1: can get merch and tagget Ologies Merch so I can
Speaker 1: repost you on Instagram on Mondays if you like. Thank
Speaker 1: you to assistant editor Jared Sleeper of mind Jam Media,
Speaker 1: who also helped with a bunch of research this week,
Speaker 1: and of course to Stephen Ray Morris, host of the
Speaker 1: kiddie podcast The per Cast and the Dino podcast see
Speaker 1: Dressing Right for his cane do attitude. The theme song
Speaker 1: was written by Nick Thorburn of the band Islands, And
Speaker 1: if you stick around to the end of the episode,
Speaker 1: you know I tell you a secret, and this one
Speaker 1: is I still feel bad for shit talking that non
Speaker 1: toad with the skin that erupts some babies. But I'm
Speaker 1: just telling you. I can watch mango worms all day long.
Speaker 1: I could watch hours of mango worms. But that got me.
Speaker 1: That got me fam okay doloo for now.
Speaker 3: Oh.
Speaker 1: Also, guess what next week is? Mycology kiddos Mushrooms. Mark
Speaker 1: your calendars. Okay, bye bye, don't look tootes.
Speaker 3: Pacadermatology, hobology or do zoology, lithology, technology, meteorology, pathology, methology, zeriology, elinology.
Speaker 2: Everybody loves hypno toes.