Poetry, Art Gallery and Toad of the Day: Outside

Outside

by Isabella

Pretty grass.

Many animals: Bugs, squirrels, foxes, toads, frogs, and deer, like to eat, hide and hunt in the grass. We like to watch them.

Isn't the great outdoors wonderful?

Toad of the Day

These beauties are Bufo periglenes or golden toads, from Costa Rica. The species is an "extreme example of a sexually dimorphic amphibian" -- meaning that the males and females are very different. The males are bright orange coloration, and the females are black with scarlet blotches edged in yellow. Sadly, I must report that these lovely creatures are extinct.

As noted in the Extinction Website:
"None have been seen since 1989. It last bred in normal numbers in 1987, and its breeding sites were well known. In 1987, due to erratic weather, the pools dried up before the larva had matured. Out of potential 30,000 toads, only 29 had survived. In 1988, only eight males and two females could be located. In 1989, a single male was found, this was the last record of the species. Extensive searches since this time have failed to produce any more records of the golden toad. (DeGroot 2000; Pounds & Savage 2004)"

Please send us your candidates for Toad of the Day -- photos or drawings.

Art Gallery and Toad of the Day

Toad of the Day

This handsome fellow is a male Bufo americanus from the Catskills. Not knowing at first that males were smaller than females, we named this one Nina, but that didn't stop him from hopping onto a female one day and hanging on for 48 hours. (This mating behavior is called amplexus.)

Mr. Toad and Nina, are, of course, the stars of that Christmas Classic The Ribbiting Santas.

Toad of the Day

Welcome. Our first Toad of the Day is the big, beautiful and beloved Mr. Toad, a female Bufo americanus from the Catskills in New York, named before we knew she was a girl.