Between frogs and toads, there is a fine taxonomic division. Amphibians both, they breed in water and can breathe through their damp skin, creatures of a demi-monde between land and pond. But frogs are smooth while toads are rough textured. Frogspawn is laid in untidy clumps and mounds whereas the toad’s spawn is strung out in elegant chains, like ghostly pearl necklaces.
Across roads and car-parks, phalanxes of brave, strong toads march resolutely to their watery breeding places, undaunted by hazard. No heroic migration attends the unruly frog, which lurks year round in the murky depths. Emerging from the mud when the weather seems clement, they set to their violent copulations in great frenzies of aqautic sex, three or four males clamped to a single hapless female.
The toad seems an altogether more evolved, resourceful little beast, happy and thriving on land or in water. It can also deliver a toxic kick to any creature foolish enough to attack: those little textured bumps on its back are full of venom, sufficient to stop any predator in its tracks. Never squeeze a toad therefore.
With beautiful eyes the colour of amber and a calm, docile temperament, it is strange and somehow tragic that gentle Bufo Bufo is forever linked with evil and moral ugliness in the popular imagination, a by-word for deceit and low cunning.
Feel sorrow and pity for the lying toad.