Bufo Toad

Species: marinus
Genus: Bufo
Family: Ranaidae
Order: Anura
Class: Amphibia
Phylum: Chordata
Kingdom: Animalia

Conditions for Customer Ownership (per USDA Permits)

Primary Hazard Considerations

• Always wear gloves while handling toads, for your protection and theirs. Chemicals and toxins can be absorbed through their skin and can poison your toad. Down both sides of a toad’s body are large parotid glands, which secrete a toxin whenever the toad is stressed. The toxin appears on the toad’s skin as a milky fluid and has been known to kill small animals which ingest it.

Availability

• Bufo toads are wild-collected from Florida. They are generally available year- round, although shortages can occur.

How Will Animals Arrive and Immediate Requirements

• Toads will arrive in a waxed cardboard box containing moist Styrofoam packing. Open the container when it is received and place toads into a habitat. If you don’t have a habitat set up yet, you can store them in the shipping container for 2-3 days as long as you mist them daily with de-chlorinated water.
• Under no circumstances should toads be placed in a refrigerator.
• Toads are olive brown dorsally with many warts. They are whitish yellow ventrally. Your toads will be 4-5 inches long.

Captive Care

Habitat:

• Bufo toads require a relatively spacious habitat. A 10-20 gallon terrarium is sufficient for one toad. A ventilated lid is necessary, as these toads can jump. A substrate of bark mulch and/or peat moss can be used. You can add some twigs and rocks to the habitat as well. Bufo are typically nocturnal animals that spend most of the day hiding, so be sure to provide ample hiding spots – cracked clay pots, empty coconut shells, or anything similar serves well for this purpose. The temperature should be kept close to 70°F to maintain optimum activity. Remember to mist the toads daily and provide a large shallow water dish for bathing.

Care:

• Toads will take a variety of foods, as long as the food is small enough to fit in the toads’ mouth. Crickets or any other small insect, are the best choice, given every other day at least. A vitamin supplement can be dusted onto the food to provide the toads with any essential minerals. Bufo are ravenous eaters and may even learn to be hand-fed. They will tend to make a mess of their home rather quickly, so be sure to keep their environment clean. Check the water bowl daily to ensure that clean water is always available, and do a complete cleaning of the habitat every 2-4 weeks.

Information

• Method of reproduction: Sexual. Males gather and call for mates. Multiple males can fertilize the eggs of a single female.
• Determining sex: Females are significantly longer than males. Breeding males may be identified by the dark “nuptial pads” on their thumbs.

Life Cycle

• Bufo toads are able to reproduce nearly year-round.
• Egg: Laid in long jelly-like strings; hatch in 2-7 days
• Tadpole: Metamorphose into toadlets in 45-55 days.
• Adult: Toads can live up to 10 years.

Wild Habitat

• Bufo toads are tropical and are found in forested areas with semi-permanent water nearby.
• The natural range of Bufo marinus is from the Rio Grande Valley of Texas south to the Central Amazon and southeastern Peru. This toad has been introduced into the Caribbean Islands, South Florida, the Hawaiian Islands, and Australia’s east coast.
• This toad is active at night and feeds on insects, crustaceans, and plant matter, and sometimes even dog and cat food.
• Predators of Bufo toads include crocodiles, snakes, eels, fish, and birds.

Special Notes

• Toads have a large gland found behind their heads called a “paratoid gland.” This gland produces a toxin that ranges in toxicity from relatively mild and harmless, to a more pungent poison, as found in the marine toad. This toxin serves as a defense mechanism, warding off any potential predator that gets a mouthful of toad.
• Bufo toads are also known as cane toads or marine toads.

Disposition

• We do not recommend releasing any laboratory animal into the wild. As a laboratory animal, it has not encountered or learned wild survival skills and is therefore likely to come to an inhumane end.
• Adoption is the preferred disposition for a vertebrate.
• If the animal cannot be adopted by a capable owner, it may be surrendered to your local humane society.
• If the animal must be euthanized, we recommend consulting the AVMA guidelines on euthanasia (American Veterinary Medical Association, http://www.avma.org/issues/animal_welfare/euthanasia.pdf). According to these guidelines, acceptable methods of euthanasia for an amphibian include exposure to CO2 at >60% or treatment with tricaine methane sulfonate (also known as TMS, MS-222 and Biocalm 947-2100). TMS is an anesthetizing agent that will cause fish and amphibian death due to central nervous system depression and hypoxia with overexposure. Wear personal protective equipment (gloves, safety glasses, lab coat) when handling this substance. The fish or amphibian is placed in a solution of 5 g per 5 gallons of water for 30 minutes or until all motion has ceased. To make sure the animal is dead, check for reflexive movement when the eye is touched. If movement occurs, replace the animal in the TMS solution for another 30 minutes.
• A deceased specimen should be disposed of as soon as possible. Consult your school’s recommended procedures for disposal. In general, a dead vertebrate should be handled with gloves, and wrapped in an absorbent material (e.g., newspaper), wrapped again in an opaque plastic bag, then placed inside a opaque plastic bag that is sealed (tied tightly) before being placed in a general garbage container away from students.