{"id":786,"date":"2016-04-03T17:10:45","date_gmt":"2016-04-03T17:10:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/woodyoutdoors.net\/?p=786"},"modified":"2016-04-03T17:10:45","modified_gmt":"2016-04-03T17:10:45","slug":"beautiful-bufo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodyoutdoors.net\/?p=786","title":{"rendered":"Beautiful Bufo"},"content":{"rendered":"

Don\u2019t touch it, you\u2019ll get warts,\u201d my mother exclaimed as she took one step back. She tried her best to convince me that she was a trained toad-ologist before she became a mother. I was eight years old, but I knew better, so I ignored her pleas and continued touching the rough, brown bumps on top of its flat head. It was one of my favorites, the American toad.<\/p>\n

\"Bufo\"<\/a>
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 American Toad-Beautiful Bufo\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The American toad (Bufo americanus<\/em>) is an amphibian native to Pennsylvania. It is one of three native toads we have here in our state. Toads differ from frogs because they have dry, bumpy (\u201cwarty\u201d) skin and shorter legs than frogs. Toads also have something else frogs don\u2019t have, a pair of poison glands on the top of their backs called parotoid glands. These poison-filled sacs are used as a defense method against predators. If a hungry raccoon or opossum bites a toad, the nasty tasting poison will usually cause the animal to quickly spit it out, and most likely avoid the toad in the future. It\u2019s because of these poison glands and the well-known myth that toads give you warts, that toads have been mentioned in history for hundreds of years!<\/p>\n

Witches, warlocks, and wizards of all shapes and sizes would claim that a toad used in\u00a0\u00a0 magic potion could cast a spell on their enemy that they could never recover from. Others believed that drinking the mixed ashes of a toad in a thick, \u201ctasty\u201d liquid could make that person invisible. Even Shakespeare mentions these plain, bumpy hoppers in his famous play, Macbeth. Still, after many centuries of being marked as dark, ugly and as an ingredient in magical potions, toads have managed to live on, and prove their beneficial role in the natural environment.<\/p>\n

In the flower beds around our home, the American toad is a welcome visitor! They eat many common pests such as slugs and beetles, so we\u2019re always happy to see them hopping around the yard in the late spring, summer and fall. Similar to many other amphibians, toads return to water each spring to mate and lay eggs. The males arrive before the females and begin calling their long, drawn-out \u201ctrill.\u201d The eggs are laid in long, jelly-like strings in a shallow pond, roadside ditch or local wetland. Although they may lay as many as 20,000 eggs, most do not survive to become adults. After hatching, the new larvae, called tadpoles, swim around their watery home for several weeks breathing through gills and eating algae. As the tadpoles change into adults (metamorphosis), they lose their gills and develop lungs to breathe. The young toads move up on land and begin their never-ending search for food. Their brown and gray color helps to camouflage them in the leaves of the forest floor, dry grassy meadow, or backyard garden. As the days grow shorter and temperatures begin to fall, the American toad seeks out a cozy spot to hibernate for the winter-ready to begin the entire cycle over again the following spring.<\/p>\n

\"DSC_0036\"<\/a>
A male and female America Toad having a “play date!”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\"amph2\"<\/a>A week after playing with that toad and proudly showing my mother my new pet, I discovered a small, red welt on my hand. Just another \u201ckid scratch\u201d to me, but after close examination, my \u201camphibious field doctor mother\u201d smirked, and said, \u201cSee I TOAD you so!\u201d Good one Ma!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Don\u2019t touch it, you\u2019ll get warts,\u201d my mother exclaimed as she took one step back. She tried her best to convince me that she was a trained toad-ologist before she became a mother. I was eight years old, but I knew better, so I ignored her pleas and continued touching the rough, brown bumps on … Continue reading Beautiful Bufo<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodyoutdoors.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodyoutdoors.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodyoutdoors.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodyoutdoors.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodyoutdoors.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=786"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/woodyoutdoors.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":789,"href":"https:\/\/woodyoutdoors.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786\/revisions\/789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodyoutdoors.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodyoutdoors.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodyoutdoors.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}