Cane Toad (Bufo marinus)
A cane toad in Suriname
Is it a frog? Is it a toad? Why do I have 4.27 million of them in my yard?!?
The answers to this pop quiz are no, yes, and sorry to be impolite but, you have bugs.
The Marine Toad (Bufo marinus), also known as the Cane Toad, or in Spanish as El Sapo, seems to be just about everywhere you try to step here, at least in the evening and at night. During the day, they just dig a bit of a pit and back into it, often against a wall or under an air conditioner or even a leaf on the ground. But come nightfall, a short walk in a park or yard will find them hopping about in abundance.
The original range of this large toad was northern South America up to the southern US, throughout Central America and coastal regions of Mexico, with Suriname at the eastern edge of its range. Today, the range has expanded throughout much of the Caribbean, south Pacific islands, and also to Australia, where they were introduced in 1935 to try and control the cane beetles, an agricultural pest.
But the marine toad has proven to be a far larger problem than solution in Australia, and other places it has been introduced to (often by accident), as it eats anything that moves such as insects, lizards, small mammals and other frogs and toads. The trouble is a lack of predators. It is not that nothing exists that likes to eat such animals, but that marine toads have a huge paratoid gland located behind the eyes that produces a fairly toxic milky secretion when they are grabbed. While in general this just causes a bit of sickness in larger animals, it can be fatal to smaller predators. Of note, you can pick these toads up safely, but wash your hands afterwards.
So, these toads can kill a large variety of things by eating them, and also kill or sicken a large number of creatures that try to eat them. They give it both ways. And, while overall averages are far less, they can actually lay up to 35,000 eggs at once! And even the tadpoles are poisonous to eat. Truly a hard animal to control by natural means.
They can live 5 to 10 years in the wild, and while not likely in Suriname, can reach 1.3kg in weight. But here, as a native species, they mostly just eat up quite a lot of mosquitoes and other insects you would rather not have around your house, so be happy to see them, but know that the big picture is much more complicated.
The answers to this pop quiz are no, yes, and sorry to be impolite but, you have bugs.
The Marine Toad (Bufo marinus), also known as the Cane Toad, or in Spanish as El Sapo, seems to be just about everywhere you try to step here, at least in the evening and at night. During the day, they just dig a bit of a pit and back into it, often against a wall or under an air conditioner or even a leaf on the ground. But come nightfall, a short walk in a park or yard will find them hopping about in abundance.
The original range of this large toad was northern South America up to the southern US, throughout Central America and coastal regions of Mexico, with Suriname at the eastern edge of its range. Today, the range has expanded throughout much of the Caribbean, south Pacific islands, and also to Australia, where they were introduced in 1935 to try and control the cane beetles, an agricultural pest.
But the marine toad has proven to be a far larger problem than solution in Australia, and other places it has been introduced to (often by accident), as it eats anything that moves such as insects, lizards, small mammals and other frogs and toads. The trouble is a lack of predators. It is not that nothing exists that likes to eat such animals, but that marine toads have a huge paratoid gland located behind the eyes that produces a fairly toxic milky secretion when they are grabbed. While in general this just causes a bit of sickness in larger animals, it can be fatal to smaller predators. Of note, you can pick these toads up safely, but wash your hands afterwards.
So, these toads can kill a large variety of things by eating them, and also kill or sicken a large number of creatures that try to eat them. They give it both ways. And, while overall averages are far less, they can actually lay up to 35,000 eggs at once! And even the tadpoles are poisonous to eat. Truly a hard animal to control by natural means.
They can live 5 to 10 years in the wild, and while not likely in Suriname, can reach 1.3kg in weight. But here, as a native species, they mostly just eat up quite a lot of mosquitoes and other insects you would rather not have around your house, so be happy to see them, but know that the big picture is much more complicated.