Now THIS would make a great pet!

This very large cane toad was found a few years ago in Australia, one of the biggest ever seen. About as big as a small chihuahua, it was dubbed "Toadzilla". I think it would make a great pet!

I've always been fascinated with weird beasties. The denizens of the amphibian, reptile, and insect worlds, being cold-blooded and hairless, are so fundamentally alien. I kept pet turtles as a kid, my older brother had snakes.

As a horror movie-loving kid, I was fascinated by the poster below when it was put in the COMING SOON window of the local theater:

When I was a small child, my grandparent's house had some concrete steps in back, and the bottom step had a hole in it. A toad lived in that hole for some time and as a kid I wondered if that toad would ever lunge out at me if I got too close to the hole.

The little guy seen in the photo below looks like he would. This toad was seen at the American Dime Museum in Baltimore. When the ADM closed last year, it sold off most of its collection of oddities. I could not afford to buy anything in their online auction, but I sure found a wealth of images. Alas, my computer crashed later and all my ADM images but one-- this one below-- were lost.


The stuffed-and-embellished toad above would truly be a cherished pet in my home. It's perfect: nice to look at, easy to care for, and makes no noise. No muss, no fuss!

An account of visiting the American Dime Museum, complete with another picture of the terrible-toothed horny toad, can be found here.

And a recent news about the discovery of the fossilized remains of a giant "devil toad" (complete with artist's rendering) can be found by clicking here.









While you're wearing out your finger checking out links , go here and here to see some photos of some dazzlingly odd, cannibalistic, real horned frogs!