MARINE TOAD 
In tropical America the marine toad squats quietly in a puddle or among 
dense vegetation and calmly swallows insects at a breath-taking rate. One 
observer credits it with gobbling up fifty-two mosquitoes in one minute, 
probably a record for the entire animal kingdom. 
It is sometimes called the giant toad, but its six-inch length makes 
it a colossus only in comparison with the related garden toads. The brown 
skin on its back is quite warty and splotched with black. 
The marine toad, despite its misleading name, is not a seafarer but 
is found inland. It was accorded the label because Linnaeus happened to 
receive one specimen from a tropical American beach and concluded, 
erroneously, that it lived in the sea. 
HORNED TOAD 
Probably the most belligerent of all toads, the horned toad, is an excellent 
hunter, capturing and slowly devouring birds, rodents and frogs of com¬ 
paratively large size. When two horned toads are shipped together in a 
box, it is not at all uncommon for the smaller one to arrive inside the 
larger. As might be expected, this voracious creature is very ill-tempered 
and will unhesitatingly nip a finger quite severely. 
Also known as the horned frog and barking toad, it owes its popular 
name to the peculiar three-cornered projection above the eye. However, 
this “horn” is a flexible skin growth and not horny. 
It shows a striking color combination. Its green and yellow skin is 
punctuated with dark green spots, large on the back and smaller on the 
sides and limbs. Yellow and white dots, and some red or brown lines, 
round out the color pattern, which seems of protective value in the tall 
pampas grasses of Uruguay, Paraguay and northern Argentina. 
When not in hiding under grass or creepers, the horned toad partly 
digs itself into the ground and tosses bits of earth on its hard back. 
The species should not be confused with the horned “toad,” a lizard 
described in an earlier chapter. 
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