Sometimes, Beetles Make Toads Regret Their Meal Choice

nytimes.com

29 points·IntronExon··6 comments

Take a while and watch toads eat if you ever get the chance. They're absolutely voracious. When I lived in the south, they used to hang out on my front porch, eating all kinds of bugs attracted by the light. I once saw a toad try to eat a slightly smaller toad. If it's smaller than them and it moves, they'll try to eat it.

I’m totally convinced that if toads were larger, they’d eat us too. Frogs are pretty tough as well.

The hairy frog is also notable in possessing retractable "claws" (though unlike true claws, they are made of bone, not keratin), which it may project through the skin, apparently by intentionally breaking the bones of the toe.[1] In addition, the researchers found a small bony nodule nestled in the tissue just beyond the frog's fingertip. When sheathed, each claw is anchored to the nodule with tough strands of collagen, but, as Gerald Durrell[4] discovered firsthand, when the frog is grabbed or attacked, the frog breaks the nodule connection and forces its sharpened bones through the skin.

Breaking its own bones to make a weapon? Check.

In hindsight, it's quite a brilliant tactic. Wait to be swallowed, then fire all you got into the predator's insides.

“After the beetles were swallowed, a small explosion could be heard inside each toad, indicating that the insects were firing their defenses.”

To write that line in the NYT and not accompany it with a waveform in 2018 on the web is a little disappointing. Perhaps the prose is more poignant than the practice.

Yes, I was also expecting an audio recording of the small explosion.

Let's hope oysters won't evolve that!

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