Classification
Order: anura
Family: bufonidae
Genus: rhinella
Species: rhinella marina
Habitat
This species is native to South and Central America. It can be found in Texas (USA), Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Panama, Columbia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Peru. Cane toads have been introduced to Florida, the Hawaii, Fiji, the Philippines, the Antilles, Japan, Taiwan and New Guinea. It is a quite common species in some area of South America and is often seen in cities.
Outward appearance
It is one of the largest tailless amphibian species. Adult toads can reach 20-25 cm in length and they get around 12 cm wide. Females are considerably longer than males. Adults can weigh over 2 kg. Their skin is dry and warty, with distinct black ridges above the eyes. They can be red-brown, olive brown, gray or yellowish, with big black spots on the back and red-brown ones on the belly. It has poison glands; aborigines used to apply their toxin on their arrows.
Character
Like other toads, cane toads spend the day in a shelter and leave it at dusk. They are solitary animals. Cane toads can jump very quickly. When threatened, they inflate their lungs and puff up, so they seem larger to a potential predator. Cane toads lay very small eggs. Tadpoles eat various water plants or cane of other toads’ species.
Cane toads are docile quite hardy and easy to care for, so they make good pets for beginners. They can be tamed and even begin to recognize their owners.
Maintenance care
Cane toads need a horizontal tank at least 50×30×27 cm large for 1-2 specimens. For heating you can use a heating cord, a heating pad or a reflector. The temperature at the basking spot should be around 30-32°С at daytime and 25°С at night; the ambient temperature should be 25-28°С at daytime and 22-24°С at night.
In your tank you can establish a landscape that will remind the native environment of the toad. You can put there driftwood and logs, as well as artificial or real plants (orchids, ivy, small figs, philodendrons, pothos, spiderworts). You should put the plants in pots, otherwise toads will simply dig them out.
First you should put a layer of drainage on the bottom of the tank. Then you put a 4-5 cm layer of gravel, and then a 10 cm layer of fresh soil which you should cover with sphagnum. Another option is to use for substrate coconut husks covered with sphagnum.
You will have to mist the enclosure daily in order to keep the sphagnum damp. You can also use a fog generator. A water bowl with fresh clean water has to be in the shaded corner of the tank. Toads can be kept alone, in couples or in groups.
Feeding
In the wild cane toads mainly eat different invertebrates and small mammals. In captivity adult toads can be fed with large crickets, cockroaches, mealworm, superworm, pinky mice, young mice or frogs. Young toads eat the same kind of food but in smaller size. Immediately after the metamorphosis small toads can eat drosophila, cricket powder and bloodworm.
Tadpoles are omnivore. They eat different kinds of water plants, protozoa, crustaceans etc. In captivity they are fed with small invertebrates (daphnia, brine shrimp etc), plant suspension and commercial feed. Tadpoles and young toads have to be fed daily. Adult toads should be fed at least every second day. Both young and adult toads should get various mineral supplements and vitamins (at least once a month). Commercial mineral supplements should be given to the toads according to the instructions.
Features
Cane toads are one of the few amphibians that can be handled, but it should not be done too often or for a long time. It is strongly recommended to wash your hands both before and after handling. This is because the white Bufotoxin that oozes out of cane toads’ glands is very toxic and can cause skin irritations or burn your eyes and mucus membranes. Although there have been no known deaths in humans due to handling a Cane Toad, the toxin can kill dogs and cats.
Cane Toads, like all amphibians, have delicate, absorbent skin and the oils and salts on our hands can cause them harm. Handling your toad with clean, wet hands makes it more unlikely that any substances on our skin will hurt your toad. Alternatively, Latex or surgical gloves can be worn during handling.
Diseases
Cane toads are hardy and rarely get ill under proper care. You have to remember that they cannot stand aspirin, it is literally lethal for them.
Average life span in the wild is 10-15 years, but in captivity they can live much longer, up to 20 years.
Breeding
The cane toad begins life as an egg, which is laid as part of long strings of jelly in water. A female lays 8,000–25,000 eggs at once and the strings can stretch up to 20 m (66 ft) in length. The black eggs are covered by a membrane and their diameter is about 1.7–2.0 mm (0.067–0.079 in). The rate at which an egg grows into a tadpole increases with temperature. Tadpoles typically hatch within 48 hours, but the period can vary from 14 hours to almost a week. This process usually involves thousands of tadpoles—which are small, black, and have short tails—forming into groups. Between 12 and 60 days are needed for the tadpoles to develop into juveniles, with four weeks being typical. Similarly to their adult counterparts, eggs and tadpoles are toxic to many animals.
When they emerge, toadlets typically are about 10–11 mm in length, and grow rapidly. The point at which the toads become sexually mature varies across different regions. In New Guinea, sexual maturity is reached by female toads with a snout–vent length between 70 and 80 mm (2.8 and 3.1 in), while toads in Panama achieve maturity when they are between 90 and 100 mm in length.
