Tortuguero, Costa Rica: Bufo marinus

[urbpan]

Since the woodfrogling went over well, I thought I'd pull up another amphibian from the archives. Bufo marinus is known by many names, depending on where it's found. Usually it's called "marine toad," which doesn't make much sense--like other members of genus Bufo, it is terrestrial (to my knowledge there are no marine amphibians). Probably it should be called the "giant neotropical toad." In Australia it is widely hated as the "cane toad," because it was introduced to help control a pest of the sugar cane crop. It wasn't very good at that, but it excelled as an invasive species and has spread across the continent eating anything a little smaller than itself, and poisoning anything that tries to eat it.

In Costa Rica (part of its vast native range), its attracted to the great quantities of insects attracted to the lights of human settlement. At Tortuguero, the lodge was the only source of artificial light for miles, and these toads were common at night. The one I'm holding is one of the smaller ones.



Photo by my dad, Doc Taylor.

Comments

[shellizzle.livejournal.com]

Wow. So, I'm going to ask a very stupid question -- what's the difference between a toad and a frog?

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

That's really not a stupid question, as you can see by how complicated I'm going to make the answer.

First, if you aren't an animal specialist, all you really need to know is, toads are dry and warty, frogs are smooth and slimy.

Now the complicated bit. Sometimes you'll hear an animal person talk about "true frogs" and "true toads." Well, you know how all living things have a two-part scientific name? (Homo sapiens, for example.) For something to be a true frog, it's scientific name must begin with Rana, like the wood frog, Rana sylvatica. For something to be a "true toad" it's scientific name begins Bufo, like Bufo marinus, above. Now, why did I bother to complicate things? The thing on my nose in my icon is a gray treefrog (Hyla versicolor), and it's warty AND slimy. There's a popular pet store critter called an African clawed toad (Xenopus laevis, sometimes called an African clawed frog) and it's smooth and slimy. Likewise, the fire-bellied toad (Bombina orientalis, another pet store creature) is slimy and warty.

CONCLUSION
Apart from Rana and Bufo, it really doesn't matter if you call it a frog or a toad. More lumpy ones tend to get called toads, more slimy ones tend to get called frogs. (The collective scientific term for the tailless amphibians is "Anurans," which is no fun to say, so most people just say "frogs and toads.")

Rana frogs include bullfrogs, green frogs, leopard frogs, pickerel frogs and wood frogs (in New England).
Bufo toads include the American toad (the one pretty much everyone has seen).

If you aren't already totally bored stiff of all this, take a look
here: