Ologies with Alie Ward - Bufology (TOADS) with Priya Nanjappa

Episode Date: May 7, 2019

Toaaaaads! Friend or foe? Dive into a toad hollow with bufologist and charming human Priya Nanjappa, who is a wealth of knowledge and a font of affection for toads. Which toads are the biggest, the most poisonous, the history of the cane toad, toad licking, orgies with pythons, mating calls, evolution, wart film flam, witch myths , toad abodes and more. This episode will change the way you crouch down and shake hands with your tiny backyard grumpa.Follow Priya at www.twitter.com/toadallypriya or Instagram.com/wildbeautifulworldA donation was made to The Amphibian & Reptile Conservancy: https://amphibianandreptileconservancy.orgSponsor links: Trueandco.com/ologies (code: ologies); KiwiCo.com/ologies; LinkedIn.com/ologiesBecome a patron of Ologies for as little as a buck a month: www.Patreon.com/ologiesOlogiesMerch.com has hats, shirts, pins, totes!Follow twitter.com/ologies or instagram.com/ologiesFollow twitter.com/AlieWard or instagram.com/AlieWardSound editing by Jarrett Sleeper of MindJam Media & Steven Ray MorrisTheme song by Nick ThorburnSupport the show: http://Patreon.com/ologies

Oh hey, it's your sister's new boyfriend, who you're quietly judging because of his cracked phone screen and bad shoes, Allie Ward. Back with another episode of Allergies. If this is your very first episode, just a few things. We swear a whole bunch in this. We swear a lot of them, most of them. If you wish we didn't, don't freak out. There are bleeped episodes of the podcast available at alleyward.com.

I'll put a link in the show notes. Moving the dang heck on. Okay, so Frickin' Toads, what are they? And are they the best? Are they the worst? Are Toads the unsung underdogs? Are they warty friends yet to be made? Or are they bastards?

Do they belong in a heap of canceled beasts who don't deserve our admiration? You'll find out. But first, business in which I thank everyone on patreon.com for their questions, for their patron hood, for making the show feasible and possible and just a joy to make. Also thank you to everyone sporting Allergies merch from allergiesmerch.com and everyone who just gets it and knows that making sure that you're subscribed and rating the show helps us get seen by pre-ologites, people who don't know about the show yet. Also thanks to the kind folks who are leaving reviews because you know that I read them

when I'm in a hotel eating gas station food and they make my day. And so I read you a new one each week as a thank you. And this week, Justin D said, my grandma passed away recently and the only thing I could do to keep myself from crying was listening to allergies. Allie, you helped me laugh when I felt like crying. That's huge. Keep it up, my friend. Justine, I'm so sorry about your grandma.

I'm sending you a hug. Everyone text your grandma, does your grandma text? If you have a grandma text her and say, hey, thanks for pushing out a baby that pushed out a baby. I don't know. You word it however you want to word it. Okay. Bufology.

Let's go down a toad hole. Let's get the hell into it. So, bufology is a word that I did not make up, although it's seldom cited to be fair. A 2011 Reptile Magazine article titled, Oh to a Toad, uses the term bufology 101, so I'm going with it. There's also herpetology, which is reptiles and amphibians. There's batracticology, which is the subfield that is just amphibians, which I may have pronounced wrong, but I tried to pronounce it so many times.

But what if I want to do a frog episode down the line or one on newts? So I'm going bufology because it exists. People use it sometimes. Also, its root is bufo in the Latin for toad, which may come from a word meaning slimy plant. Or it may also come from bufare, meaning to puff up. And buffoonery is a related word. It's debatable, like toads for some people. So where are you with toads?

You know what? It doesn't matter. Because in an hour and change, you'll be padding out to the backyard, a little bare feet with your coffee mug every morning, just hoping for a toad encounter. Just mark my words. Okay, so thisologist is wonderful. We tried to meet up so many times in the past year or so, but our travel plans kept hitting snags.

And then this past week, we both happened to be thousands of miles away from our respective homes. We were in Minneapolis on the same night. She was on a road trip toad trip, and I was on this ology's Midwestern interview bonanza. So I used your Patreon money to get her a nice room in the same hotel. And with butterflies, I went down to it, kind of like a nervous tinder date. She has a gorgeous soul. She's so funny and candid and enthusiastic about toads.

And I love her and I hope we are always friends. So if this is your first episode of ology's boy howdy buckle up, get ready to hear a scientist passionately describe a love of toads. She's so human, I cherish her. So she was once the program manager for the association of fish and wildlife agencies, where she also served as a national coordinator for partners in amphibian and reptile conservation. She worked as a biological science technician for the US Geological Survey in the amphibian research and monitoring initiative, and now works in the non-profit ecology sector at

conservation science partners, but is still in the field a bit out toting and salamandering and frogging and newting. But today she is in a Minnesota hotel about to get super bufological with me. So hop on in to a conversation with amphibian enthusiast and bufologist Priya Ninjapa. On my way to see Priya, 806, 806, here we go, gonna meet Priya, gonna talk to toads, 806, oh my gosh, here we go, this is like a blinding toads, toads, toads, toads. And now you are a lover of toads. Yes.

Um, what is it about toads specifically that you love? Oh my gosh. I know that, why did I open with a question that's, we could do a whole series. Oh yeah, there's so many things to love. I know. So, I was thinking about this because I knew you were gonna ask me this and there's so many different ways I could go with this question. But I think just in general, I tend to be somebody who likes the underdog, you know

what I mean? Like the thing that people don't want to love, you know? That kind of plays into my romantic life as well too. But anyway, that's a whole nother story. They're just so fucking cute, you know, like you just, they're fat and they're like grumpy faced and you just know that they're really not grumpy or you want them to really not be grumpy, but they just, they want to act grumpy. They want to act tough.

They puff up. Priya studied wildlife biology with a minor in environmental studies at Iowa State University and then she went on to get a master's in conservation biology at Ball University. And her work involved developing the first national database of amphibian distributions and maps. Kind of like a census taker. Just going up to tiny toad houses saying, hey, knock, knock, how to who, pardon. How many of you are living in that log?

I'd like to observe you eating bugs and doing the nasty. But what got her into it? I remember my first toad sighting, which was in my mom's garden in Iowa. And it just would like hop along the tomato plants and eat things. And like eventually we figured out that we could build a little toad hut like out of a pot, you know, and just put that in there and it would just, you know, go and hang out. And I was so sad on the days when I didn't see it. Like I'm sure it was all seasonal, but I don't remember, you know, the specifics of it.

And I do remember other people's houses where there'd be one like sitting under the gutter eating the flies and stuff like that. And I liked other critters too, but there was something about the toads that I just kept coming back to that I just kept like, I don't know, I just love them. They're just, they just have that face, you know, it's just that face. I love that you had a toad friend. Like the toad was your friend. It kind of was my friend.

Our warty buddy got a toad about and in return it ate all the bugs that wanted to eat their lettuces. It was a mutually beneficial relationship, kind of like when you dog sit and then also while you're there, you eat all their snacks. And then I think we somehow like figured out or looked it up, you know, there was no, no internet back in those days, but we figured out that there was, that it was going to be a helpful thing. And so, yeah.

And so that toad lived there. I want to think that it's the same toad came back like year after year, but I know we definitely saw a toad in the garden at least a couple of years, but yeah, I don't know. And maybe the great grandson of the original toad. Oh my God, that would be just so delightful. That was true. How long did they live? Oh man, there's a variety of age ranges just depending on the species.

I think probably 10 years, you know, five to 10 years is on average in the wild, I think. But there are some in captivity, I think that, you know, have can live really long. They look ancient. They do. They look like they're in their 80s. All of them look like Wilford Brimley. And we're like, yeah, listen, green. They totally do.

They totally do. I'm Wilford Brimley and I'd like to talk to you for a few minutes about diabetes. P.S. Wilford Brimley was a TV star who was also known for his Quaker Oats commercials and for changing the American pronunciation of diabetes to diabetes. Diabetes. Also, I just looked up some facts about Wilford Brimley and the one of the most stunning is he's very much alive. He's only 84 years old, which means that he was just 60 when he was playing like deep,

deep grandpa genre roles. I respect him for just leaning into that. So toads, tiny, grumpy grandpas. They are grandpas. Okay. But what makes a toad a toad? Straight away. What is the difference between a frog and a toad?

Okay. So generally speaking, most frogs have like smooth skin. They tend to need a closer association with water or aquatic environments. And then the toads that we traditionally know, you know, with the big kind of stout fat bodies and the warts and everything, they typically can be away from water longer and they don't need as much of that sort of direct moisture the way that frogs do. And then they also secrete these toxins from their skin. Really?

Yeah. And so like that's the biggest thing. There are some frogs that do that as well, but pretty much all toads have some sort of gland, you know, and they secrete some sort of bufotoxin. And so... Bufotoxin. Bufotoxin. Such a good punk band.

Right? Yeah. Bufotoxin. Is their skin thicker? And what exactly are the warts? Are they air quotes warts? That's a good question. These warts on toads are associated with these.

They have mucus glands and granular glands, but the granular glands are the ones that are responsible for the toxic secretions and it's for an anti-predator defense so that when anything grabs it, it just tastes bad and they spit it out, you know, or sometimes they'll get sick. Some of the toads produce some pretty strong toxins. So all toads are frogs. Okay. But not all frogs are toads.

Oh, I love those. It's the old cactus succulent. Yes. Like all cactus are succulents, not all succulents are cacti. Yes, exactly. Okay. And like in the amphibian world, there's like nutes, you know, like all nutes are salamanders, but not all salamanders are nutes.

And nutes are to salamanders like toads are to frogs kind of. And early lineages of toads are, they look more frog-like. Okay. And so like over time that those different features, the more like stout bodies and bigger warts and glands and things like that appear kind of later in evolutionary history. They came after frogs, so somewhere in that like Cretaceous Cenozoic period, they've been around. Oh, geez.

They're Wilfred Brimley's. And he wrote out wonderfully British vertebrate paleontologist Darren Niche has written extensively on toad evolution and its many gnarled branches. And also he has a pet cane toad named Milo, which looks like it can kick my ass. Anyway, more on cane toads in a minute, but cane toads like frogs have teeth sort of. They have like a little peg like nubbins, but other toads do not have teeth. So to recap, toads are frogs and toads have no teeth. Yes, for warts, they've got a poison gland behind their eye called a paratoid gland.

I thought to have been like an adrenal gland just got bonkers. Oh, and another souped up special feature not available on the standard frog model. And then the other really weird thing is that toads have this thing called the bitters organ, which sits like kind of between the kidneys and the gonads. And I think both males and females have them, but they're thought to be like a primitive ovary or like it's kind of like a spare set of follicles, but the males have it too. And so like in experiments in the lab, they've removed the testes, just castrated them. And all of a sudden this bitters organ like is like, oh, okay, time for me to come into

play. And then like it starts forming eggs and like, yeah, initially when I had learned about it, I was thinking that maybe it would go, you know, it would like, you know, create sperm or something in the males and ovaries or eggs in the females, but no, it's just like always produces eggs, it has like follicles. And then the same thing with the female, like if one of the ovaries doesn't work, then it will start to come into play. But the other interesting thing with the males is that like in some situations where there's

estrogen mimic chemicals or like other chemical things that will like chemically castrate, all of a sudden that organ starts taking off too. And like it's named after the dude who discovered it, but it always relates to eggs and oocytes. I think that means that, you know, the ability to possess ovaries is probably like the original evolutionary condition, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

I love it. Publish it. I just peer-reviewed it. Perfect. It's up. Done. No paywalls. Okay.

And then what about their big, crazy, weird eardrum? Oh, so, well, so they, I mean, they do have that tympanum and that's how they can hear each other sing their lovely songs. But those ones in those areas where they don't call, they have lost their eardrums. So they just do the waving thing or whatever and they don't even need them anymore so they don't have them. Oh, yeah. So yeah.

But it's just that tympanic membrane. It's kind of like in most frogs, like have them, it's just like a little kind of like a drum head, you know, basically, and they, you know, sense vibrations from the calls of other, but they can sense, you know, they can tell the difference between their own species obviously and others and, yeah. What about their eyes? Is their eyesight good? Eyesight bad?

I don't think they're supposed to have very good, I have never seen them in glasses. They would look so good in glasses though, wouldn't they? They would look so good, like just some little hipster, like some sort of thick frame glasses. For those ones without the rims. Yeah. So I think they, I don't think they're thought to have like great eyesight, but I don't think it's bad. I think they can discern color though because like some of the, like some toads are sexually

dimorphic more than just the size, like there is actually color differences. So kind of like in birds and stuff like that. So yeah. So they must be able to have, they must have some color vision, but I don't know. Are the males bigger than the females? The females are bigger than the males. Oh, by a lot? Yeah.

By a lot. Yes. Yeah. Usually by quite a bit. Like if you see them mating, like it's just like this little tiny male on top of this big old female. It's just, it always looks a little funny. Oh, and both have tympanums to hear sound, such as for example, the romantic, screamy

love ballads man toads make by inflating an air sack, like a big extra chin, kind of like having a subwoofer on your face. Hey. So another thing that's really cool about toads is they have all like a lot more bony material in their skull, like their, or their skulls are like highly ossified. And those crests and the shape of those crests and stuff are what you can use to distinguish species when they are like in the same area. And you have a lot of similar looking little brown toads with warts other than the warts

per spot. Certain species. Yeah. No, it's, yeah, it's warts per spot. Like in the like dark brown spot, there'll be like two or three warts if it's an American toad. And then if it's a Fowler's toad or something or Woodhouse's toad, they'll have more in each like dark spot.

And then there's like the shape of the paratoid glands, which are the things that produce like behind their eyes that produce that more of the toxic secretion. And then those little crests and bosses and ridges and everything like they, yeah, that's how they differentiate themselves. But yeah, so they have these really cool skulls. Frogs don't have that. Oh my gosh. Yeah.

You think of them as like the cavemen. They're actually the ones that came later. I'm going to get a full toad back tattoo. What's going to happen? There are toads on all continents. Everywhere except Australia, which right now is only being overrun by the invasive cane toad. Oh, really?

Yes. Yeah. Australia got a, got a little bit ripped off on the toad card and then they got payback. And then they got, yeah, kind of, yeah. And they, they didn't used to be on Madagascar either, but now there's a different toad that is found on Madagascar that's also super invasive and yeah, wreaking havoc. So yeah, unfortunately, the toads that are finding their way to places where they never were like the ones you just don't want to be there.

Okay. Let's loop around back real quick and talk about cane toads, shall we? Okay. Great. So these are these huge ass toads. They're also called marine toads. Even though they're terrestrial, lineas made like an oopsie daisy in the 1700s about their habitat.

But the largest recorded one measured over nine inches long. They look like holding a big leathery pretzel roll, but with legs. And they are college stoner level hungry. They eat everything from like live bats, sometimes plants, to bugs, to dead animals, to just straight up garbage. There's just literal actual garbage. Most scientists report they seem to give few if any fucks, enabling them to get both large and in charge.

They also have successful and very prolific mating strategies. So in summation, cane toads, they're like the Romans. They like to eat. They like to make love. And they're native to the Americas and even South Texas, but they now live all over the damn place because in the 1930s, someone was like, Hey, I got an idea. See. Yeah.

So I think it was like where they were growing sugar cane, they were, they had brought them there to control like the bugs, you know, that were eating the sugar cane. And then of course, you know, anytime you bring a thing to control the thing that you don't want, then that thing goes, you know, crazy. So they're these big beefy marine toads. And so they can live, they can tolerate like saltwater environments, but they also apparently can live all over the place, you know, on land. So they're like in vast swaths of Australia and all over Hawaii.

They're in Florida now. How do you control a cane toad population? It's proving to be really difficult. They have had some luck with, I want to say caffeine or they're like dropping caffeine or spraying caffeine. That has been effective in some places in knocking down the population. And I think just generally they try to go and like, you know, collect, collect them up and then just, you know, euthanize them.

So throw them in a volcano or something. Yeah. That's pretty much, yeah. So yes, some parts of the world have a real cane toad problem. Also the beetles that they were supposed to eat, they like to climb to the top of their sugar cane and the toads are like, it's too high, no reachy. I'll just eat this bird instead. So now Australia has a bunch of poisonous toads and sometimes people's dogs eat them and trip

absolute balls or just die. Okay. But caffeine really as an agent for toad assassinations. So okay. What happens is concentrated caffeine when sprayed around by a professional eco barista, if you will, causes amphibians to have heart attacks and they, well, they croak. Really toe the line with that one kiddos. Please don't stop listening.

Okay. So concentrated caffeine, it gives them pretty much like lethal panic attacks, but one can spread coffee grounds in the garden and they might just get real buzzy and uncomfortable enough to just avoid the area. Kind of like how I didn't go into a Starbucks for a while after a venti induced anxiety meltdown. But this could also be just wicked mean to slugs and such because caffeine is a plant's natural defense against getting munched on by a lot of critters. Also this sent me down a weird hole learning that a plant can poison itself with its own

caffeine. So the leaves drop, the caffeine leaches into the soil and the plant is like, oh nuts. I brought this on myself. Now okay. If killing animals makes you squeamish, you could always just exploit them for profit and become a drug dealer. So Country Farm Lifestyle website offered up the advice of painting chloroform on the belly of a cane toad until they start oozing milky poison and then just like a pimple full

of money, you can gently express their paratoid gland right behind their eyes. But watch your eyes, wear some cool steampunk goggles or something so you don't get splat into on the eyeball and then wind up really crying over spilt milky white poison. So quick aside, within this aside, a side-ception if you will, does Priya have a favorite toad? Yes, she has a soft spot. She has a soft warty spot for American toads because they were the first she saw in the Midwest but she did clarify that they no longer belong to the Bufo genus. North American toads are now classified anaxiris, which sounds like a very cool rebrand if you

ask me. So, versus anaxiris, reminds me of the time my girlfriend, Ben, wanted us to call him Sebastian with an E on the end. But unlike anaxiris, it didn't stick. I'm sorry, Sebastian. Sebastian? They're a little bit fatter and their eyes are just a little bit more like bulbous so I really kind of fell in love with them.

But there's some really pretty toads too, like in the Southwestern U.S. there are these green toads and then these red spotted toads and they're just, yeah, they can be really pretty. Especially in South America, like I haven't seen like all the Bufanid species that are down there. I mean, it would take, you know, millions of years. There's so many species of toads all over the world but they are really diverse and interesting.

PS, how many species of toad are out there hopping around and frowning? It's over 600 and some look like dead leaves with a face and some are beautiful rainbow colors. I don't think we haven't even discovered yet right now. Just kicking it in a hollow, I think. Is that where toads live? Do they live in toad hollows? Do they live in little like cardboard spots and trees and stuff?

Yeah. Well, pretty much in burrows of different sorts, some of them can do a little bit of digging but a lot of times they'll live in other, you know, mammal burrows and things like that. Okay. So for more on being roommates with a gopher tortoise, see the Testudonology episode with Amanda Hipps. Also, I just tried to Google toads plus friends plus interspecies and I'll be honest, not much popped up.

I guess it's lonely being horny and toxic. Oh, and if you've already heard the thermophysiology episode with Dr. Shane Campbell-Staten, you might know a little bit about wood frog antifreeze but how do toads get huga, aka higgy with it? That Scandinavian word for cozy in the winter. Do they knit chunky turtlenecks and sip hot table wine out of a crock pot? Do they all peace out to condos in Florida when it gets chilly? What happens?

They don't freeze. Like some frog species can totally freeze in the winter. They produce this antifreeze but toads don't do that. They just go underground like below the frost line where it's just warm enough that they can survive through the winter and they hibernate but they don't freeze so they just live underground. I need you to settle something for me that has been plaguing me for a long time. You love toads. You've studied toads.

I do. Yes. True or false? Toads have arms. Yes, they do. Okay. Thank you. I don't feel like toads have four legs.

I feel like they have two legs and two arms. They do. Toads have arms. They do have arms. I mean, they're like little Popeye arms, right? Like you just see a little tattoo on those little forearms. They're so fat and the males have fatter forearms on purpose like to clutch on. Clutch.

Yeah, on the ladies and they, yeah, they have arms. Okay. Thank you. And tell me. You will see it like in different places and references about their arms and like how they are. Really? So is that official?

I'm going to say it is. Because I just cannot accept that those are legs. It's not how legs work. No. Yeah. Because they really look like, yeah, they're, they're, yeah, they're like little wrestler arms. Yeah.

Totally. And they have little hands. They do. They do. They really do have. Yeah. Okay. That makes me feel better.

Okay. So quick aside and look this up and they are called arms. They are called arms. I went into this thinking this was a battle. I had to fight. I was willing to die and leave my corpse on this hill that toads have arms and instead no one wanted to fight me. It's just a known thing.

They have a humorous, they have a fused radius and ulna bones and four fingers. Just like us. The only thing they can't do is give me a knowing appreciative thumbs up because technically their thumbs aren't opposable. Anyway, moving on. So Priya has done a lot of work with a lot of amphibians, namely salamanders, but her field work, helping collect toad data made her love them even more. Just a little ways into the season, the toads would come in and they would just be everywhere

and they were just so fun to watch and they just, you know, they have these big like orgies and, you know, just the eggs were everywhere and then the tadpoles would be everywhere and there's probably at least a couple of sites where there probably was close to a hundred toads and, you know, hopping across roads, but whenever we would see them, we would, you know, we'd measure them and determine the sex and just kind of look for overall these sort of health of the animals and we were doing that in general for the other critters too because we were finding some, in some cases, like some different malformations with some of the frog species, but we didn't really find that with the toads, which is

interesting. We definitely saw a lot of them, you know, just just out and about and just hopping along. You can really find them when they're breeding, you know, when they come to the ponds to breed, you'll find them like just hopping around in the woods, but just very randomly, like once they, once they come in and they do that and then they get out, they just are, you don't really know like where they are, what they're doing and like, I just imagine them like underground in their burrows, just having like little, you know, socials and, you know, like little underground bars and just chilling out, you know, like all winter and

Are they solitary or do they or do they burrow with friends? Do you think? Um, I think there are some records of them like in sharing burrows with other toads and we actually found a multiple species like hibernaculum, but I do think that there are toads that will, you know, share the same types of burrows and then there are some places like where the soil is really sandy and they can just kind of shimmy down under the sand, like especially in the more hotter environments because in a lot of places in the southern US, both east and west, they're active pretty much here around.

They don't really have much of a hibernation, but you know, in the northern areas, they do. Do they sleep? Do they sleep? They do. They do sleep. Um, I've never seen a sleeping toad. Yeah.

I haven't seen a sleeping toad. Are they nocturnal or are they out in the day? Um, when they first come out, it's usually during the day and they will like just be singing their little hearts out, like all during the day and then they kind of shift to just calling at night and so you don't really hear them during the day, but you'll see them out there sometimes. We definitely like when we'd go out in the field, um, to our sites during the daytime, we would see the toads just everywhere and they weren't always calling by that point.

Um, but then if you came to the same pond that night, you know, they would just be singing like crazy. Yeah. And so it's cool. Oh, listen to these beautiful sounds. That is nature's way of singing. I'm pretty horny. I'm over here.

I'm ready to be a dad to thousands of kids I'll never meet once again, a very horny. Well now that's a fine horny toad and I want him bad. P.S. Where does the word horny come from? I thought maybe I'd wander down a lush forest of bufological etymology. It turns out horny toads aren't even toads. They're just another name for the horned lizard. They just call these spiky-necked southwestern lizards toads because they have kind of a

stout body. So good morning world. We've been lied to for generations. Let's get back to our real friends, the toads and their robust sexuality. Talk to me about toad romance. You mentioned to the word orgy. Let's revisit that. Yes, sure.

Let's do that. What is happening when toads all get together to make more toads? When toads start wanting to get their freak on, they are like so indiscriminate sometimes. I've seen a toad emplexing a rock. One time I was taking temperature of the water and there were some toads nearby and this little toad hopped up and grabbed onto my fingers. They are so funny and they get all territorial and if they think, like in that case, obviously they thought I was like, I got to get on that thing.

That thing looks like I should have made that. But sometimes they're just defending their territory and they do that thing. Like I said, they puff up. And as I picked it up, they do this little release call. The American toads make this little like little thing like that. Like they're a version of a car alarm. Let's hear that, shall we? Priya says that release call essentially translates to oops, nope, I'm a boy toad, please don't

mount me, bro. Thanks, buddy. Like the little just little trill like as I was holding it and yeah, I fell in love a little bit more that day, but it they are just like on everything. And so and because the males are also really competitive to get the females, there's usually like three or four on the females and we definitely would find sometimes like half drowned females. And this happens with frogs, other frog species too. But like where the there's so many males that they basically were like weighing her down

and then her head is like staying underwater. You know, they they breathe air. So they like, so she's getting drowned by all these aggressive fuckers. So I know these eager dudes like come on number and she's just like, look, yeah, I got one. And she's going to squirt out some eggs and then they're just going to go buy and season them sort of. Well, yeah, and they do have external fertilization. I mean, that's, you know, part of the strategy is they're just sort of hanging out and then

they'll be like ones that will just be like sitting there like waiting for the one to hop off so that the next one can hop on. And OK, tell me if I'm hallucinating. Is there a type of toad where the baby toads are birthed from holes in the back? Or is was that an American horror story? No, no, those are those are a different family. So they're not Bufanids. They're not true toads.

They are called like the Suriname toad and yeah, that oh man, that's like the craziest like reproductive strategy. They'll lay the eggs and they'll be fertilized and then they like scoop them up with their legs onto their back and then their back like the chemistry of the skin changes and it basically like absorbs the eggs into their back and then the skin grows over the back over the top of it. It's like some serious sci-fi shit. And then and then when they get ready to hatch, they hatch out as like a little live.

It's not even tadpoles. It's like little live baby toads and they just start cracking out of the mom's back. So crazy. That is such a horror show. I mean, it works for them and good for them. Right. Yeah. But I mean, and it's it's really cool though, actually, like we use that a lot in like outreach with kids as an example of just amphibian, you know, like cool, you know, adaptations

that they have. And they're always like, eww, let's see it again. You know, so but yeah, that one's a really freaky one. But yeah, those are not true toads, though. Those are those are in the Pippa Day family. Okay. Fonda Day. Okay.

So I look this up and as a person who has relaxed to dozens and dozens of videos of blackhead extractions and bought fly maggots under human skin, shout out to lepidopterologist Phil Torres for fostering one in his back recently. And my personal favorite, mango worm extraction. I found this surname toad thing revolting. First off, it just looks like a frog who's been flattened by a mallet but came back as a muddy, angry ghost. The surname toad, scientifically known as Pippa Pippa, Pippa means kite because it's

flat and pointy. It looks like an angular roast chicken breast with webbed feet and like a mesh tank top of skin is its back. It's riddled with holes out of which flailing, squirming mini toads emerge in a fury like a jailbreak. It's a nightmare you cannot imagine. And if you have that fear of holes, whatever that's called, get a restraining order against the species.

I have met my match. This is disgusting. Also, not even really a toad. It's an aquatic frog. Get out of here. Let's get back to toads. God, this was gross. I mean, beautiful, but very upsetting.

Let's talk toad licking. Oh, yeah. Who's doing it and why? Yeah, there's a lot of people that are doing it and they probably shouldn't be doing it. But yeah, so there's only one toad. In the U.S. that produces that particular type of it's a bufotoxin. You can't just like lick the toad. You will not be very comfortable if you just lick the toad.

Again, do not lick the toad. Why consider this story a PSA against toad basing? We were driving down this little golf course where another colleague of mine had these rattlesnakes telemetered, you know, tagged so we could track them. And I saw this thing hopping along and I was like, what? Is that a bunny? And he was like, those are the Sonoran Desert Toads. And I was like, what?

Those are those toads, the ones that you can lick. And he was like, oh, yeah, those are those ones. And so when we like had to stop and we went and checked him out, he's like, OK, now you got to really wash your hands, like here's some Purell and whatever. And like later on, I just like, I think I just kind of like rubbed my nose or did something like that. And it was like really burning, like just from that little bit that was probably still on my hands.

And thankfully, I didn't touch my eyes, but like that can can be a real problem. I think the indigenous people had learned how to basically harvest it. And then I think you have to dry it and process it a little bit before you can actually use it in those ways for, you know, to have the true hallucinogenic experience. But yeah. So you have to kind of milk them by stressing them out probably a little bit. Pretty much, yeah.

But I think they just they do have like a fair bit just on them. They're pretty gnarly. But yeah, I don't think it takes much to stress them out. You could see like certain toads, you can actually see the secretion. It's like this milky stuff coming out. You just have to talk to their moms. They're like, Exactly.

Comes flowing out. Exactly. But yeah. So there are these stories, though, that people like will do it in such a way that they can still get a high and just keep the toad so that they can like kind of harvest it. And I'm sure, you know, people have studied like all of these different ways of how you can make it happen.

But I have not experienced the the toad high. I wonder if people on YouTube are like, listen, Oh, here's what you do. I'll be looking. I'm sure you will. And I'm looking forward to learning more about that. Oh, you know, I will. OK, so the Colorado River Toad or the Sonoran Desert Toad, same thing.

They're native to what's now Northern Mexico and the Southwestern United States. So these produce a poison that has a form of the psychedelic substance DMT, which is produced in humans, naturally, but like during a dream state. And maybe when you die, I have here we go. Do not go milking and licking it. That's not going to work for thousands of years. Indigenous cultures have perfected the harvesting and the drying and the smoking of this angry toad juice.

And what is said to result is everything from like a powerful love and oneness with nature to feeling like dying and a rebirth to seeing geometric aliens chirping welcomes into another dimension. Did I mention don't lick a toad? Don't try this on your own. This is not a Pinterest DIY hack to diddle with on the weekend. Respect the culture, respect the history, respect the toad. What about toads in popular culture?

How do you feel about the children's book series, Frog and Toad? Toad, Toad, the sun is shining. The snow is melting. Wake up. Oh, I am not here. Oh, my God. One of my favorite books, like for real, like even before I really became like a toad lover, like it was just one of my favorite books. I just loved the little relationship that they had and how toad was always so grumpy.

But yeah, so I had Frog and Toad are friends. And then that became the book that I gave all my friends when they started having kids and stuff. There's a lot of vilifying of toads in pop culture, I feel like, you know, just the whole thing about getting warts from toads, which, of course, you can't. You can't. They're not viral. It's just part of their back. Yeah, they're just they're just trying to protect themselves.

They're just trying to make sure that nobody eats them. That's all. And also stop licking them if you don't want to get any disease. And they'll have a lot worse things you can get from licking and toad like Salmonella among other things. Among the other things is a strain of chlamydia and a bunch of bacterial infections. I can't pronounce. So don't lick toads. No one wants to get toad chlamydia. You want to tell people you got toad chlamydia?

Also, what is the state of the toad these days? How are toads? Do they need us? Do they hate us? I know that cane toads are having a heyday right now. It's the it is the era of the cane toad. But how, in general, are toads fairing these days? It depends. So some of the species of toads have been hit pretty hard by the Kittred fungus,

the amphibian Kittred fungus, Petrachycytrium dendrobatidus. That's quite a mouthful. Or BD, for short. In Central America, especially, there's a couple of the Adelopis genus species that have that are thought to be extinct. There's a golden toad that's in the Encilis genus from Costa Rica. That is, it was like their iconic toad species. And they think that that's extinct.

I think they've found like maybe a couple of individuals here and there of all of these different species. But yeah, but they've gone extinct and it's because of this fungus, this fungal pathogen. So have you heard of like white nose and bats? So this actually came before. And then like the people in the white nose world like learned from that. But it took the BD world, the amphibian world, like a really long time

to figure out that it was this fungal pathogen. It was described as a new species once they figured out that that's what it was. But it's been responsible for, well, it's questionable. But there's a recent paper that says that there's like 500 species that have declined throughout the world on that because of BD. But there's some question about that a little bit. So at least most people say like around like 200 or so species that have declined, or gone extinct specifically because of the impacts of BD.

And in the US in particular, some of our toad species have been the ones that have been most impacted. So the boreal toads, like I was saying, the Western toads. And there's a Wyoming toad that's related as well. And it just has a very small distribution in Wyoming. And it's also been impacted. And so there's all these like recovery programs going on for those two toad species. They were raising them in captivity and, you know, having good success with that.

But then when they put them back out in the habitat, they would die because this fungal pathogen remains in the habitat. So once it's out there, it's really hard to, you know, to figure out like how you can get them back out there. So they're trying a bunch of different things to maybe see how they can, how they can help them to persist with it. Yeah. So disease issues are something that has impacted our toads. There's multiple strains that are being documented now.

There was an out of Asia and out of Africa hypothesis that were kind of competing for a while. And I believe they still have determined that it came out of Asia. But because of trade is why this thing is moving around. And in fact, with BD, they would use those African clawed frogs. Do you know what I'm talking about? They're fully aquatic with claws. Like you'll see them like in Asian markets.

They're they're established in Los Angeles or somewhere down around there. Like in the wild, yeah, there's a population down there and in a few other places in the US. But anyway, they were used as pregnancy tests. Wait, what? So these are not toads, but yeah, these frogs were used as pregnancy tests. And the what they would do is they would take they would have them in a doctor's office, you know,

and then a woman who thought she was pregnant, they would take her urine sample and inject it into the frog. And if it laid eggs, then she was pregnant. And so, of course, after they were done with these frogs, they would just like chuck them outside. Oh, dear. Yeah. And so many of these had those obviously came from Africa, but they were carrying this fungal pathogen and apparently can like they're resistant or they, you know, they can persist with it.

And so they were then spreading it to all the native species. So this was an awful practice. But at the time, it seemed favorable to the older way, which was injecting a live rabbit with prego pee, waiting a couple days, killing it and then examining its ovaries or or you could pee on wheat and just see how long it takes to germinate. So if you're ever in a position to pee on a drugstore stick, I guess just be glad you're not waiting for seeds to sprout

or like actively murdering a bunny other than fungus and old timey pregnant ladies. And I guess like really desperate fish fans. What are the predators of toads? Oh, there are various birds and snakes that will eat toads. Hognose snakes are kind of toad specialists. The toxin doesn't seem to bother them. So they're able to manage with them. But crows, which are super smart, as you know,

will like eviscerate toads and then just eat their gooey insides. Yeah, that's what I do with airport sandwiches. I just eat the middle. Yeah, right. Exactly. That's what I do, too, because I try not to eat as much bread anymore. So I just eat like the cheese and the veggies. I'm going to fall asleep if I eat this whole pretzel roll inside. Oh, my God. So you eviscerate your sandwiches.

Yeah, so they just unzip them in the belly. Pretty much. Yeah, they just go for the little soft part right there. And they just like, you know, pick them open and just they I mean, like, and it's sometimes it's like you can see it's like a little shirt that has been removed. You know what I mean? Like I've seen some toads out there where they they've pulled off the skin in such a way that it looks like they're just stuck with their shirt

like up above over their head. You know what I mean? And my God, and we and raccoons will do that a little bit. Sometimes like they'll they'll bite off like the head or the legs and then spit them out and then they'll just like, you know, claw out or suck out the inside. And so we'll see these like half eaten toads and stuff in the breeding season, especially because, you know, they're like, smorgasbord, we're just in here.

Oh, my God. It's like a like a shrimp, a fan or cruise ship going for it. Exactly. Oh, my gosh. OK, now toads in pop culture, toads, are there any any toads in movies? Oh, there's this whole like Cane Toad movie. Do you not know about this? No. Oh, my God.

You have to I it's like a tack of the killer toads or something. I think. Oh, my God. If you look it up, you'll find it. But it's all about these cane toads and it's it's hilarious. It's like such a great like classic B movie. When I'm driving a car, I have no hesitation of running over them whatsoever. I couldn't do without them. They're friends.

Oh, so she's talking, I think, about the very cheesy 1988 documentary, Cane Toads and unnatural history, which I would very, very much like to just kick back and watch. These cane toads, man. Oh, I had no idea. I think the biggest toad, Cane Toads are the biggest toads, and they can like, I think the record is like three pounds or something like that. It's an absolute unit.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Completely. Would you ever keep one as a pet? No, you know, everybody asked me that and I never I never have. So no, no pet toads for Priya. She prefers to see him hopping about and just enjoying the wild, having their orgies. One of which was recently captured as 10 cane toads at once. We're riding a Python bearback in Australia.

It looked like toads on the subway home from work. But what was really happening was not commuting. The Python just didn't have that release call chirp, if you know what I'm saying. But let's say you'd like to have more outdoor pals and you're not a Python. How can you make your backyard a haven for toads? So you turned over a pot in the garden and then did you carve out like a little toad door? No, like you just I think I actually like I you they have this stuff like at the nature centers, like these little guidance type things.

But you can like bury a pot like halfway so that it's like becomes like a little tunnel. You know what I mean? You can find these little like designs that are out there for these little toad homes and they even make like actual like terracotta toad homes. Like, yeah. So do yourself one favor today and look up the hashtag toad abodes. Oh, what a sight. What a sight for sad hearts.

Just all kinds of pottery in the shape of mushroom houses, toads, road houses, little ceramic cottages for warty locals several times a day. Since seeing that, I just stare off. I think of all the toads and all the little houses all over the world. Taking a snooze. All right, let's pepperpureo with some questions. Are you ready for Patreon questions? I think so.

But before I ask the questions that you submitted patrons, a few quick messages about sponsors of the show who make it possible for us to make a donation each week to the cause of theologist choosing. So this week, Priya requested a donation to be made to the amphibian and reptile conservancy to support inclusivity and diversity initiatives in amphibian and reptile conservation. So thank you, Priya. Also, if you like allergies, I think you would dig a podcast called Gastropod.

I don't know if you've heard about it, but it's about the science and history of food, and it's hosted by two lovely women. I just wanted to give them a shout. They go on these deep dives into the most curious topics. They visit the world's most advanced model gut at dinner time. They take you on a quest to figure out where microbes in sourdough come from. They figure out whether science can speed up the very magical process of aging whiskey. So in short, they're just obsessed with finding surprising science behind the

food we eat every day. So you can find Gastropod and subscribe to it on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. We just thought that you guys might like each other. Okay, sponsors. All right, your questions. All right, Patreon questions. We got a ton.

Okay, done. Really? Yes. That quickly? Yes. Okay. Jack Kelleher asked, life cycle of a toad, same as similar to a frog? Or do they live longer or shorter than a frog?

Do you think? Oh, well, I think it depends on the species. Um, and, you know, some frogs live pretty long, some, some toads live pretty long, but, but, you know, kind of on average in that sort of five-ish, seven-ish, you know, ten-ish range of years. But life cycle, yeah, fairly, fairly similar to a frog because, you know, they are frogs. They are frogs. Yeah.

So they will like mostly be on land until it's breeding season, you know, or like be hibernating or, or whatever. And then they'll come to the ponds for that breeding season. They'll call, attract their mate. Um, there are some toads that don't call and they're, oh my God, I can't believe. There are some toads that will do that leg waving thing. You know, have you ever seen that? Oh my God.

You have to. Yeah. So they like, in these like stream environments where it's so loud because of all this stream noise, um, they have evolved this, like they just, they literally take their back leg and they just like go like this. Priya, by the way, is laying on the hotel room bed, doing a move that looks like part synchronized swimming, but also part shipwreck victim. And I think in some of them it's their front leg, maybe two, but they anyway, or

their arm, yeah. And they, they just like, they're like, Hey, I'm over here. Oh my God. Like hailing a cab. Yes. And then some, you know, chick totes walking by. Oh, okay. I see.

I never knew that they did that. Yeah. So there are, so anyway, I kind of digress there. But yeah. So generally speaking, they attract their mate, the mate, you know, the female comes over and they, you know, do the deed and they have, um, mostly external fertilization. There's a couple of exceptions. And then, you know, they lay their eggs and mostly, most of the species like lay a

lot of eggs and maybe you'll have a pretty decent amount of the eggs that'll hatch into tadpoles, but then like the tadpoles are food for all sorts of stuff. Oh my God. Have you ever seen like all the little toadlets popping out? Are they really called toadlets? Yes. Oh God. Toadlets.

And they're, they're so tiny, but they're just like, they're the cutest freaking things. Frederick Roy wants to know, are there any studies on the possible medical applications of toad toxins? Yes, I don't know the details of them, but I know there's some study on how it affects heart rates and there's kind of like a steroidal element to it. And I think like the, in the cocktail, there's also like epinephrine and, you know, components and things like that. And so in animals and other things that have like experienced the toxin coming

into contact with the toads, like they have these like extended periods of fast heart rate, or sometimes they have like a really slow heart rate. And so I think they're studying like, maybe there's a way to kind of like home that in, there's some cool stuff going on with that. PS, I gave a quick Google just to make sure. And yep, sure thing. Plenty of research being done on toad toxins as anti-inflammatory agents, cardiac activity regulators, and anti-cancer agents.

So the future is toads. I'd love to see a prescription pad that just had to toad. Toad. Toad, two licks a day. Call me in the morning. Heather Albrecht says, what are toad communities like? I always see toads on the ground blazing their own trails, but then there's always another little guy not too far away.

Do they reconvene at the end of the day in communal housing? If they survived my lawn mower, or do they battle it out for prime resources? Do they have friends? They all come together for the breeding season, but they're not really like friendly, you know, they're like all competing during that time. And it is true that you do tend to see them together. And I think that is probably because they must like hang out together wherever they're, you know, overwintering or hanging out during the hot months or something.

Maybe they're in the same hypernaculum, which is my new favorite word ever. I'm like, literally, I'm going to get a sign from the bedroom, just called the hypernaculum. Yes, it's the perfect name for the bedroom house. Jana May Purrington wants to know, why does everyone think toads are so much grosser than frogs? I don't know. That is such a good question.

I think it's because of the warts, you know, people just think, oh, gross, it's all wordy and they don't want to touch it. But, you know, they're just so like, if you just actually look at a toad face, you know, I mean, they're just so cute. So expressive. So expressive. And like you, you just, you kind of know where they stand. And I just, I love that they're just.

Toads do not suffer fools. They do not suffer fools. Yeah. Uh, Ira Gray wants to know, why do toads pee on me when I pick them up? Oh, yeah. You're like, yeah, that happens. That happens all the time. I've got so much toad pee on me.

Um, it's just a defense mechanism, you know, they just don't, they were like, Hey, maybe if I pee on you, you let me go. I mean, who hasn't tried that in a meeting you wanted to leave. But, you know, they, just from sitting in a, in a little puddle of water or something, like they can absorb up enough water. So it's, um, unless it's been really dry, like you're not really, it's, it's, you don't have to worry too much about it. But if you're finding a toad, like out in the middle of the woods and you pick it

up and then it pees on you, then you might have kind of, um, made its life a little bit harder for a little while. Give a little cup full of water and let it just sit. Yeah. Just put a little, just pour a little bit of your water into a little bowl and just, just like plop it in there and let it just reabsorb some more. I love that they do that. Yeah.

Sarah Terry wants to know what, what do you think is the most poisonous one ever? Or rather. That's a good question because like there's, you know, the different toxin cocktails in these, these bufo toxins. Um, I think the cane toad is pretty toxic. Yeah. I don't know if it's the most toxic though. That's a, it's a good question.

But I know that that genus, that Rinella genus, I think a lot of those have like pretty strong toxins. I think the Encilis maybe does too. And that's the genus of the, the Sonoran desert toad, the one that is the hallucinogenic one. Shoot, I don't think I've said this yet, but don't lick toads. Sarah Peck would like to know if you know any toad related magic spells. I'm sure you know something.

Um, so in Macbeth, that same like double, double toil and trouble poem at the beginning of it, it talks about a toad and like put that in the pot first. Toad goes under cold stone days and nights at 31. They're basically trying to get the toad toxin into their little witches brew. But I'm sure there are other toad poems. I don't know. Oh yeah. I'm going to look up some toad witch spells.

I'm sure there's a ton. So I just did a little tippy tapping. And according to some very helpful occult website, during medieval times toads were seen as satanic creatures and folks thought that witches could like magically cause play as toads and then go poison people and just cause general toad related mayhem, although now that I'm thinking about it, that Disney frog prince fairy tale of a woman kissing a frog and then turning it into some well groomed and presumably fiscally stable man was maybe just a parable about a hallucination.

Who knows moving on. I'll pick a paka wants to know, is there a humane way to get rid of cane toads or not? I know. Yeah. Um, probably the most humane ways, if you could like just collect them all up and like, I don't know, freeze them or something, you know, like they'd like slowly, slowly turn the temperature down, totally freeze.

I don't know. Just go to sleep, sleep, right? Yeah. Oh, there are, you know, they actually, you know, I don't know. There's this thing that we used to use, um, when we were either getting ready to preserve critters, like for, um, pickle jars, and it's this stuff called MS 2 2 2, which I think is like regulated differently now, but it's, it's kind of like a cocaine relative and you just like, you, you would sprinkle a little bit into like

a jar of water and you'd put the toad or a frog or whatever in and like after a little while I was like, and so if you put in more than it'll feel that way just before it dies and so then it's kind of a peaceful death. So yeah, if, but there, you probably couldn't do that very easily with, especially the cane toads as big as they are. You'd have to get like big vats of that, piles and piles of kilos of MS 2 2 2. MS 2 2 2, you need a dealer. Uh, Laura Kinney wants to know, do toads travel far from their borough or

wherever, whatever a toad home is called to forage or find a mate? How is there commute? What's a toad commute like? Uh, you know, I think generally speaking, they're thought to be not, um, they, that they don't move that far, but there was recently, um, one of my colleagues in Utah was tracking these Western toads and found that they moved like five or six miles, which, you know, a toad that hops like that's a long ass way. Like between where their breeding site was and where they, I think we're hanging

out like in the winter, because they'll go back to the same ponds where they merged to go breed. And so when those habitats got fewer and far, but farther between, like if they went back and their pond that they know was not there, they'll usually just go a little bit further until they find the next thing. And so probably like over time, these animals have developed the ability to go that far and especially the ones in these montane habitats, you know, like there are a lot, um, fewer areas, you know, and a lot more ground to

traverse between ponds. That was one that I remember was like pretty striking. Like I just learned that a couple of years ago that, um, those particular ones were able to do that. And I'm pretty sure that there's nothing in the literature that suggests that they go that far. Do they have a homing device? How are they finding the same ponds?

Yeah. I think they believe it's a little bit both like astrological as well as, um, chemo sensory and they're able to like, you know, smell their home ponds basically and go back. Yeah. That's, that's true of a lot of, of amphibians in general. Like they, they tend to go back to the same. So, and actually a lot of reptiles as well, like they'll, they'll kind of,

they have sight fidelity. Oh, I didn't know that's what it was called. Oh, um, Megan Janelle Leschen asks, in your opinion, what type of toad has the most beautiful mating call? Oh. Oh man. And, and says some of the best sleep I've ever had took place at a little cabin in northern Wisconsin.

And I specifically remember the toad songs being extremely calming. I do really love the American toad call. It's just that long trill. It's so pretty. Have you heard it? No. Priya offered to do a toad trill and I said, yes, please. Oh my God.

That one is a very soothing one. Like, um, there's another relative, the wood houses toad or the Fowler's toad. They sound like a woman or a child being murdered. Seriously. Like I have been out in the woods with other herpetologists and we're like, oh my God, there's a woman in trouble. And we're like, oh no, shit. That's just a Fowler's toad.

Oh my God. Just horror toads. Yeah. Oh God. So those are the not soothing ones. In all of this praise of toads, something's got to suck. They've got to be addicted to someone. What is wrong with a toad?

There's got to be something you dislike about toads or about just in general toting, toad tripping. Um, I mean, I think the worst quality of a toad is that they just. They try to be so tough. Like just, just admit it. Like you're just a soft little sweet thing. Like just admit it. You know, this is what I'm, this is again, like where my romantic life comes.

But, um, like, I know you're trying to be all tough and badass, but you're not, you're not all that tough and badass. Like just be soft. Just be, it's okay that you're soft. I see your soft belly. It's all good. All right, Mr. Tefka, what about the fact that you got sexually assaulted by a toad?

Well, see, that's also, yeah, they're pretty, they're pretty aggressive. That's so forgivable. It's like, okay. No, that's, that's pretty bad. You're right. Um, what else though? I think when you're out to hunting yet, well the toxins, but what about when you're out toad hunting?

Are you out there in the middle of the night? Are you, are you just sloppin' around in boots? Oh yeah. In the, in boots at night, headlamp, trying to like take the females heads out of the water so that they don't die. Yeah. When you're out, when you're out frogging and toading at night and you're in hip waders and boots, do you bring along like a thermos of hot tea or anything?

What are the creature comforts out there? Well, you know, once it gets to be around toad season, like the nights are relatively warm or at least they were out in Maryland. Um, so yeah, so it's kind of nice being out at night, you know, it's like those like sort of warmish nights. I mean, there were definitely some days like one of my friends and I, um, in grad school, we would just like, we wouldn't even wear boots. There was these like mucky ponds and we would just take off the waders because

they would get stuck in the muck and we would just go barefoot in like in shorts and, and just like, yeah, just kind of like become one with the toads and they would be like all around you and other frogs and stuff too. And then you get to see like things swimming in the water, like turtles. And now, uh, do we say a favorite thing about a toad? So hard to pick. Do you have a favorite thing, the one thing about a toad that you love the most? Or about your job as a herper?

Oh, what is my favorite thing about a toad? I don't know. There's just, I just, I just love their little bodies, their little, that classic toad shape and just the little hop and the, the face, you know, just that little classic toad face. You're going to get all these comments afterwards, like, Oh my God, I can't believe you shouldn't say about this shitty thing that a toad does. No.

Oh my God. But speaking of that though, they do like, so they pee, but. You have to look up a toad pooping. What's the deal? They're, they have the biggest shit. Like they poop out these logs that are seriously like a third to a half of their body length. I'm telling you, it is the craziest thing.

I've only seen it once, only once, like in the wild, but like videos. Yeah, you have to Google that. Oh, of course I looked this up. I mean, I think they just eat a lot in one sitting and then they like hop around and then all of a sudden, like the one that I saw, like it started just doing this weird, like crunching thing, you know, like a dog gets ready to poop and like it, and then all of a sudden it was like, Oh my God, it's pooping. And then this thing like just kept fucking coming out.

And it was this huge ass shit. Like, yeah, you have to see. Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy. Okay, I guess if you take nothing else away from this episode, it's just that toads make turds. I, of course, I sought out video proof and was instantly furnished with some YouTube gems, such as one titled Toad pooping a giant turd. Look at the size of that load, man.

Oh my God, dude. It's like he's laboring it out. It's almost like he's giving birth to a child. And yet another small film called Toad taking a massive shit. It's an impossible seeming volume. In a human scale, you would easily need a second toilet. Let's move on. And you are my favorite bufologist.

You're my favorite toad lover on the planet. I'm the only one you know, aren't I? That is true, but you're also my favorite. So ask smart people stupid questions and follow Priya Nanjapa on Twitter at totally priya, T-O-A-D-A-L-L-Y priya. And also you're going to want to follow her on Instagram at wild beautiful world because she mentioned she might get a toad tattoo on her toe and that then she would be tattooed, follow her and love her.

Okay, links to those accounts will be in the show notes. And they'll be up at my website at alleyward.com slash oligies. I'm at oligies on Twitter and Instagram. I'm at alleyward with one L on both. And if you're looking for less adult science content, I'm also on the Netflix show brainchild, which is a science show. I host the CW science show. Did I mention invention?

I'm also on Innovation Nation with Mo Raka on CBS every Saturday morning. So thank you also to Aaron Talbert and Hannah Lippo for admitting the oligies podcast Facebook group. Thank you, Shannon Feltis and Bonnie Dutch for all of your super hard work making the oligies merch site run. You can get merch and tag it oligies merch so I can repost you on Instagram on Mondays if you like. Thank you to assistant editor, Jared Sleeper of Mind Jam Media, who also

helped with a bunch of research this week. And of course, to Stephen Ray Morris, host of the Kitty podcast. The Percast and the Dino podcast, C. Jurassic Wright, for his cane do attitude. The theme song was written by Nick Thorburn of the band Islands. And if you stick around to the end of the episode, you know, I tell you a secret. And this one is I still feel bad for shit talking that non-toad with the skin that erupts in babies.

But I'm just telling you, I can watch mango worms all day long. I could watch hours of mango worms. But that got me. That got me, fam. OK, doodaloo for now. Oh, also guess what next week is? Mycology, kiddos, mushrooms, marker calendars. OK, goodbye. Don't lick toads.

Hack a dermatology. Homiology. Gyptozoology. Litology. Nanotechnology. Meteorology. Vectology. Nephology.

Seriology. Cellulogy. Everybody loves Hypnotone.