Playing with Toads.

Greetings, readers of The Dangerous & Daring Blog for Boys and Girls. I am Mike. You may know me as The Maximum Leader from the blog Naked Villainy. If you happen to read my blog, you will know that I opine (with varying degrees of seriousness) on politics, history, philosophy, culture, and whatever else happens to strike my fancy. I was surprised and pleased that Ted invited me to be a contributor here on The Dangerous and Daring Blog for Boys and Girls. I was surprised because I don't often think of my blogging as being oriented towards young boys and girls. But I was pleased because this outlet will give me an opportunity to write about a whole host of subjects in a way that I would not ordinarially think to do so.

While I have not yet read the book "The Dangerous Book for Boys," I am a father of three children. I am a dad to two girls and a boy. I belive that I was raised in a "traditional American" fashion. Unfortunately, I don't see that many kids are getting the same type of upbringing I got. I hope that my contributions here can help someone out there learn something for themselves and possibly use that knowledge to teach their kids something they might not otherwise learn.

That said, my first post is not actually my own... Almost three years ago my good friend, and fellow blogger at Naked Villainy, Mark -- the Smallholder -- wrote two posts that got us lots of traffic. The subject of the two posts revolved around sexing toads. If you've never played with a toad you've never really been a kid. My friend Mark, through the post he wrote, taught me something I wouldn't have learned before.

Here is revised edition of those posts about Toads...

I once had a pair of toads as pets.

I was playing in the woods one day and I came upon a pair of toads and took them home. I kept them in an terrarium.

I named them Shake and Speare.

Shake and Speare were cool pets. I taught them to jump through hoops. They slurped worms up like spaghetti. If you fed them lightning bugs, the lightning bugs would light up inside their bodies. The bugs would appear as a red glow through the toad's skin. If you fed Shake and Speare several lightning bugs and then let them hop around, the blinking lights would make them look like moving Christmas trees.

I always wanted to have them lay eggs and hatch tadpoles, but over three years never had any luck, even though I had a male and female pair.

Shut up. It’s not that hard to sex toads, you perv.

You just pick up a toad and rub the belly. A female will squirm around. A male will squirm around and squeak.

You see, toad sex occurs when a male wraps his arms around a female and squeezes out her eggs. He then releases his sperm into the water and his sperm fertilize the floating eggs.
During mating season, things get really hectic. “Toad balls” develop as males struggle to be the one closest to a fertile female. As a defense mechanism, the squeak is the way one male toad lets another male toad know: “Get off! I’m not a girl!”

Try it with the next toad you find. Impress your friends.

For those of you who wish to sex toads at home, here is a step-by-step guide:

1) Make sure your toad is a toad. Many people seem to confuse frogs and toads. Frogs are moist, have smooth skin, and are generally found near water. Toads are dry, have bumpy skin, and are terrestrial except when they mate.

2) Pick up the toad gently, but with enough control so that it doesn’t squirm loose and splat itself on the ground. Hold the toad away from your body because they will attempt their standard defense mechanism: peeing on you. Toad pee is very acidic, and if you were a dog or predator, you’d drop the poor guy quickly. As it is, you’ll want to wash your hands after you are done sexing your toad.

3) Turn the toad over in the palm of your hand so it lays with its back down and its head between your thumb and pointer finger. Gently wrap your fingers around it’s body. Maintain enough pressure that it cannot squirm forward, but don’t squeeze it too hard either.

4) Turn your hand so the toad is right-side up in relation to the ground. Use your middle finger to stroke or tickle the toad’s belly. If the toad croaks, you have a male. If it does not, you’ve got a lady.

And there you have it... Now you can go and sex a toad...

Carry on.