The cane toad has poison glands behind the eyes

The cane toad ( Bufo marinus ), also known as the giant neotropical toad or marine toad, is a large, terrestrial true toad which is native to Central and South America, but has been introduced to various islands throughout Oceania and the Caribbean.

The cane toad is a prolific breeder ; females lay single-clump spawns with thousands of eggs.

The cane toad is an old species.

A fossil toad ( specimen UCMP 41159 ) from the La Venta fauna of the late Miocene of Colombia is indistinguishable from modern cane toads from northern South America.

The cane toad has poison glands, and the tadpoles are highly toxic to most animals if ingested.

Because of its voracious appetite, the cane toad has been introduced to many regions of the Pacific and the Caribbean islands as a method of agricultural pest control.

The cane toad is now considered a pest and an invasive species in many of its introduced regions ; of particular concern is its toxic skin, which kills many animals — native predators and otherwise — when ingested.

The cane toad has many other common names, including " giant toad " and " marine toad "; the former refers to its size and the latter to the binomial name, Bufo marinus.

Linnaeus based the specific epithet marinus on an illustration by Dutch zoologist Albertus Seba, who mistakenly believed the cane toad to inhabit both terrestrial and marine environments.

The subgenus Rhinella is increasingly considered to constitute a distinct genus of its own, thus changing the scientific name of the cane toad.

These species can be distinguished from the cane toad by the absence of large parotoid glands behind their eyes and the lack of a ridge between the nostril and the eye.

In the United States, the cane toad closely resembles many bufonid species.

alt = A juvenile cane toad, showing many of the features of the adult toads, but without the large parotoid glands

The cane toad is very large ; the females are significantly longer than males, reaching an average length of.

The skin of the cane toad is dry and warty.

The juvenile cane toad is much smaller than the adult cane toad at long.