It’s not easy being brown and warty, spending each day the colour of a cane toad.
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Wouldn’t it be easier to be green, or orange or even blue and yellow?
I can’t help but feel that some of our local frogs get a bad rap at times.
Many Top End frog species are well camouflaged.
Their brown speckled backs blend in well with the surrounding leaf litter as they crouch down low to the ground.
Many have small lumps and bumps on their skin, making being invisible even easier.
This is great if you generally resemble a small and defenceless, soft little bag of food for a passing snake or owl.
There is an unfortunate side effect to being a warty little wonder these days!
The introduced Cane Toad, Rhinella marina, is also brown and bumpy.
As an adult it is a very robust animal.
The large poison gland that sits just in behind its eyes and the dry, rough brownish skin make it fairly easy to identify.
Young cane toads however can look startlingly similar to many of our little native frogs. If you are controlling toads in your garden you must be very certain that you are picking up the right animal.
Many native frogs will sit low to the ground, using their posture to hide in amongst the leaf litter while they hunt for dinner.
Cane toads however will often sit up straight and tall. Once you are able to spot the difference they are hard to mistake. An adult cane toad has a heavy bony ridge that starts above their eyes and meets above the top lip in a single ridge. They almost appear to be frowning while many of our local frogs have quite cute and appealing faces.
We seem to be having a fairly warm and humid dry season this year and there are still many amphibious visitors around our gardens. Make sure that your toady looking mate is not a frog!