Trip Report- Married and Jungle(ish) Herpetology Adventure

lightleak said:
Impressive animals.

Why did you put a leash around the poor Toad? :(

l.
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To annoy it?

Awesome trip.
Thank you for sharing!

Youre chasing the toad around the bed and instead of your girlfriend shortening the leash(so you can catch him) she keeps the leash long so you get to chase it.
Nice.
 
ramsay12344 said:
To annoy it?

instead of your girlfriend shortening the leash(so you can catch him) she keeps the leash long so you get to chase it.
Nice.
Click to expand...

Thats wife by the way.....

Actually she would have preferred to just let go of the "leash" but she though that the cane toad might get hurt if it jumped off the bed. I handed the string to her just to play with her a bit (kinda mean on my part). She wasn't scared of the toad but she has enough experience to know that if you grab it quickly it will urinate as a defense. The fear in her voice was because she was afraid the toad would pee on the bed, or on her.

The cane toads are a nuisance, and although most of the staff was afraid of them (explained in third toad vid) the rest were happy to gather them in buckets and bags and throw them over the side of a steep hill. I asked a one of the grounds keepers why they were doing that and they said that there were no coatamundis on that part of the resort anymore because they were poisoned by eating cane toads. I know from distribution maps that cane toads have been there for as long as herpetological surveys have been completed but their population in the last 15-20 years has exploded. I took his statement as a description of how they view the cane toad as a pest even though it is native there.

The toad on the bed was not harmed. He was barely even annoyed by the ordeal. How do I know? Because when I took the leash off of him he coupled with one of the females that I caught. The only thing on their minds is eating and breeding and they did both in the second bath tub where I kept them over night so that I could photograph them in the daylight.
 
Nice.
I love iguanas. Everytime I see one I get a little misty eyed. I used to have a green iguana named "Ozzy".

Those frog pics are awesome. Can't view the vid here at work, how'd you get poisoned by a Cane Toad?
 
KEmSAT-Survival said:
Those frog pics are awesome. Can't view the vid here at work, how'd you get poisoned by a Cane Toad?
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I was showing someone the parotiod gland and gently squeezing the one facing away from me when he erupted the one on my side and sprayed some of the Bufotoxin on my face and in my mouth. I didn't know they could erupt the gland on their own but after reading up I learned that "squirting" the poison is a common defense. You can see how far it shoots in the first vid when I gently squeeze one to demonstrate.
 
Md 25v said:
Thats wife by the way.....



The toad on the bed was not harmed. He was barely even annoyed by the ordeal. How do I know? Because when I took the leash off of him he coupled with one of the females that I caught. The only thing on their minds is eating and breeding and they did both in the second bath tub where I kept them over night so that I could photograph them in the daylight.
Click to expand...

I apologize. I thought I read girlfriend somewhere in your post. Dur, it even says "married" in the title.

Just because the toad didnt seem annoyed when it was around another toad and you took the leash off of it doesnt mean it wasnt annoyed at that point in your time together. It may very well have been relieved to be free(er) and around another toad and thats why at that point it didnt seem annoyed, but was.

You didnt mention anything about it seeming annoyed when you disturbed it(s eating, sleeping, XXX, ETC.) / chased it / tied it up / toadnapped it inside...

You admitted it was "barely even annoyed" and didnt succeed that statement with "so as soon as possible; I freed it outside, somewhere safe."
 
Md 25v said:
I was showing someone the parotiod gland and gently squeezing the one facing away from me when he erupted the one on my side and sprayed some of the Bufotoxin on my face and in my mouth. I didn't know they could erupt the gland on their own but after reading up I learned that "squirting" the poison is a common defense. You can see how far it shoots in the first vid when I gently squeeze one to demonstrate.
Click to expand...

Oooooh I see, said the blind man. I don't know jack about amphibians. But those little dart frogs are gorgeous.
So are the iguanas.
 
Fair enough, I'm sure I did "annoy" the toad. I'm just not concerned about it. He was willing to eat bugs right from tweezers while on the leash. He would even hop over to me to get the bugs. The truth is I didn't release it until the sun was going down (about three hrs after vid was shot) because the staff would have just caught him and thrown him over the hill like the other cane toads they found. I waited until dark to release all the Cane toads throughout the time I was there and every morning there were freshly laid eggs in the second bath tub which I gathered in a bucket and dumped in the pond at the end of the week. The eggs were successfully fertilized because the embryos did not turn grey/white.
 
KEmSAT-Survival said:
Oooooh I see, said the blind man. I don't know jack about amphibians. But those little dart frogs are gorgeous.
So are the iguanas.
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The dart frogs were my favorite. There was an indoor exhibit with several species that I refused to go see until after those pics were taken because I wanted my first dart frog experience to be one I found in the jungle. I can't put into words how excited I was to catch my first poison dart frog. I told the guide that the Pumilio dart frog wa my favorite and he went above and beyond and several miles off rout to help us find them.
 
God how I love Costa Rica! I could live there. I spent some time at the hot springs at the base of Arenal, awesome place. Brings back a few memories. Thanks
 
Haven't watched the videos yet, but GREAT pics, and congratulations:thumbup:
 
Md 25v said:
did you watch the video?
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Yes I watched the video, makes me wonder even more why the toad had to be on a leash in a room, trying to jump and dangling around on it. I am no biologist but in my humble opinion respect for the environment looks differently.

l.
 
Lightleak- We will simply agree to have a difference in opinion here as to whether the toad was abused. I have explained to Ramsay why (in my opinion) he was fine but I would be happy to discuss this further with you by email (mine is found in my profile) so that we do not fill my honeymoon thread with this.
Thanks
 
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