Well, the odious little toad went along chivying animals and humans who couldn't retaliate, and in due course, as was inevitable, overreached himself.

A traditional Lao explanation is that the moon was being swallowed by a toad, and the remedy was to make all possible noise, ideally with firearms.

The din was successful, too, for just before the moon disappeared, the frightened toad had begun to spit it out again, which meant good luck all around.

The golden toad of Monteverde, Costa Rica, was among the first casualties of amphibian declines.

Despite its failure to control the rodents, the cane toad was introduced to Puerto Rico in the early 20th century in the hope that it would counter a beetle infestation ravaging the sugarcane plantations.

Following the apparent success of the cane toad in eating the beetles threatening the sugarcane plantations of Puerto Rico, and the fruitful introductions into Hawaii and the Philippines, there was a strong push for the cane toad to be released in Australia to negate the pests that were ravaging the Queensland cane fields.

After an initial release in August 1935, the Commonwealth Department of Health decided to ban future introductions until a study was conducted into the feeding habits of the toad.

However, the toad was generally unsuccessful in reducing the targeted beetles, in part because the cane fields provided insufficient shelter for the predators during the day.

The cane toad was introduced to various Caribbean islands to counter a number of pests infesting local crops.

In 1920, the cane toad was introduced into Puerto Rico to control the populations of white-grub ( Phyllophaga spp.

A second group of toads was imported in 1923, and by 1932, the cane toad was well established.

The population of white-grubs dramatically decreased, and this was attributed to the cane toad at the annual meeting of the International Sugar Cane Technologists in Puerto Rico.

The six-year period after 1931 — when the cane toad was most prolific, and the white-grub saw dramatic decline — saw the highest-ever rainfall for Puerto Rico.

Nevertheless, the cane toad was assumed to have controlled the white-grub ; this view was reinforced by a Nature article titled " Toads save sugar crop ", and this led to large-scale introductions throughout many parts of the Pacific.

The cane toad was first introduced deliberately into the Philippines in 1930 as a biological control agent of pests in sugarcane plantations.

The cane toad was introduced into Fiji to combat insects that infested sugarcane plantations.

The introduction of the cane toad to the region was first suggested in 1933, following the successes in Puerto Rico and Hawaii.

The cane toad was successfully introduced into New Guinea to control the hawk moth larvae eating sweet potato crops.

Evidence suggests a third release in 1938, consisting of toads being used for human pregnancy tests — many species of toad were found to be effective for this task, and were employed for about 20 years after the discovery was announced in 1948.

This instrument was designed to drop a bronze ball from the mouth of a dragon into the mouth of a toad.

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.

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 density of the cane toad is significantly lower within its native distribution than in places where it has been introduced.

The cane toad has been introduced to many regions of the world — particularly the Pacific — for the biological control of agricultural pests.

These introductions have generally been well documented, and the cane toad may be one of the most studied of any introduced species.

Before the early 1840s, the cane toad had been introduced into Martinique and Barbados, from French Guiana and Guyana.

As a result, many countries in the Pacific region emulated the lead of Puerto Rico and introduced the toad in the 1930s.

Australia has four families of native frogs and one introduced toad, the Cane Toad.

The introduced cane toad is present in the park, and may be competing with some of the native animals.

The bullfrogs taking over Australia and destroying all the crops is a reference to the cane toad, originally introduced to Australia in order to protect sugar canes from the cane beetle, but became a pest in the country.

However, one species of toad, Rhinella marina, and two species of frog, Eleutherodactylus johnstonei, and Eleutherodactylus gossei were introduced by humans and subsequently became naturalized.

But it also looked like a toad, hopping away from the light.

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.

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.

Poisonous sausages containing toad meat are being trialled in the Kimberley ( Western Australia ) to try to protect native animals from cane toads ' deadly impact.

By blending bits of toad with a nausea-inducing chemical, the baits train the animals to stay away from the amphibians.

The cane toad is native to the Americas, and its range stretches from the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas to the central Amazon and southeastern Peru.

After considering the possible side effects, the national government of Fiji decided to release the toad in 1953, and 67 specimens were subsequently imported from Hawaii.

Today, the cane toad is well established in the state, from the Keys to north of Tampa, and they are gradually extending further northward.

alt = A selection of cane toad merchandise, including key rings made from their legs, a coin purse made from the head, front limbs and body of a toad, and a stuffed cane toad

Cane toad skin has been made into leather and novelty items ; stuffed cane toads, posed and accessorised, have found a home in the tourist market, and attempts have been made to produce fertilizer from their bodies.

The toadstool's connection to toads may be direct, in reference to some species of poisonous toad, or may just be a case of phonosemantic matching from the German word.

Among these were the teeth of a reptile / mammal hybrid, Plagiaulax dawsoni, " found " in 1891 ( and whose teeth had been filed down in the same way that the teeth of Piltdown man would be some 20 years later ), the so-called " shadow figures " on the walls of Hastings Castle, a unique hafted stone axe, the Bexhill boat ( a hybrid seafaring vessel ), the Pevensey bricks ( allegedly the latest datable " finds " from Roman Britain ), the contents of the Lavant Caves ( a fraudulent " flint mine "), the Beauport Park " Roman " statuette ( a hybrid iron object ), the Bulverhythe Hammer ( shaped with an iron knife in the same way as the Piltdown elephant bone implement would later be ), a fraudulent " Chinese " bronze vase, the Brighton " Toad in the Hole " ( a toad entombed within a flint nodule ), the English Channel sea serpent, the Uckfield Horseshoe ( another hybrid iron object ) and the Lewes Prick Spur.

The piece includes palm trees, shoes, stuffed toys, a lemon meringue pie, Richard Nixon, Sigmund Freud, an iron toad wired to an electric battery, a dominatrix, and other images from the novel.

The name " tadpole " is from Middle English taddepol, made up of the elements tadde, " toad ", and pol, " head " ( modern English " poll ").

Furthermore the cane toad, which secretes a poisonous liquid from glands in its ears, has also appeared on the island.