Barbados has more than it’s fair share of frogs and toads, and the cane toad is particularly common. They seem to flourish even in the driest of dry seasons, and as soon as a few drops of rain fall from the sky, they suddenly appear, seemingly from nowhere.
The one pictured here was not particularly large, about 5 inches from nose to tail and, surprisingly, appeared in the middle of the day and was on it’s way to a shadier location.
Cane toads seem to eat just about anything. Their poop is quite generously proportioned, and as it disintegrates, it’s easy to see the remains of millipedes and cockroaches and beetles, so they serve a very useful purpose in keeping insects under control, but at the same time, they poop everywhere and make quite a mess. And they burrow down into the soil or grass to avoid the heat of the day, and that includes jumping into plant pots and generally making a mess and even uprooting young plants. They can easily find their way into a pot that is 20” high.
If you put out food for your dogs and the frogs get there first, the dogs might go hungry - fortunately most of them learnt at an early age not to interfere with these poisonous amphibians as many a puppy has died from ingesting the toxin when “playing” with a toad.
I remember as children hearing the bull frogs, as we call the male toads, croaking away all night long as they tried to attract a mate, a very recognisable sound, but we don’t seem to hear that so much now, or maybe there’s too much other noise at night nowadays to block it out.
Cane toads have been around for thousands of years and have a knack for surviving all sorts of harsh conditions, and are now considered pests in many countries. I don’t think they are going to be disappearing anytime soon.
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