**********The Giant Bufo Toad Explanation**********

 

Here’s another fun little Florida Fact———

 

We have poisonous toads too.

They aren’t easily missed.

They’re huge.

 

 

They can stop a city bus in its tracks.

Oh, and………………….they can kill you…

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*****Don’t You Just Love Florida?*****

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It’s not all about the picture perfect sunrises and sunsets and sugar-sand beaches and Mickey Mouse………………

 

There’s evilness lurking in the dark recesses…………………just waiting for the unaware…………….or the occasional/lost, beach-vacationing tourist.

Years ago I remember talking with my reticent father.  It wasn’t so much a conversation as his verbalized thought.

He said that it was interesting that alligators hadn’t changed much since prehistoric times.

 

He followed that up with saying that it was probably because they didn’t need to evolve anymore, that for their purposes, they were pretty much perfect…

 

**********https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinosuchus**********

Well, all I can say is at least they don’t usually weigh over a ton anymore…

But back to the Bufo Toads………………….the Giant Bufo Toads…………….they’re here……….!

**********Poisonous Bufo Toad**********

And they are in our front yard.

They are in our back yard.

They are in our chest freezer…………………..

 

I’ll explain…

 

First of all………..

I usually have a live and let live attitude.

Usually.

Unless it will hurt my family………………and by “my” family I mean my human family and my animal family.

 

 

 

The Bufo’s are already in trouble.

Big time.

 

Because they can be very lethal with their secretions from their bilateral sacs behind their eyes……………

 

 

A while ago an herpetological husband of a friend of ours said that he had to euthanize an injured reptile once……………………so, he put it in their freezer…

He said it was like they were going into a hibernating state……………….forever…

I heard what he had to say, and I filed it…………

 

And now Daughter #1 and I go out nightly and catch as many Bufo Toads as we can and contain them in grocery bags and put them in our chest freezer……………(left-overs can be dangerous at our house).

 

We wear surgical gloves.

We are careful…………………mostly…………….

Except for the one time I put a twistie in my mouth that my daughter was holding right after she was “experimenting” with the excretions from the toad she was holding…………….

 

My mouth and lips seemed to tingle and sting for a bit………………..

I spit a lot……….

………..and wiped my mouth on my sleeve a lot.

I must be okay………………………..I’m still here to write about it…

 

Poor toads…….

But they need to be poisonous toads elsewhere…………..

 

Simple, tough logic…

Ah, Florida………………………….the Sunshine State…………….!

(except for the dark, lurking corners)…