ANOTHER CREATURE THAT I DEARLY WANT TO KEEP

From YouTube: Nice capture of a Surinam toad with babies emerging from her back. This is not the same animal that I previously posted videos of with eggs. This animal is from the collection of Jay Sommers www.JaySommersReptiles.com.

DALE DRINNON: The Water Leaper

I had been fascinated by the Welsh creature known as The Water Leaper or llamhigyn y dwr since I first saw it illustrated in Brian Froud's book Faeries (1978).

The creature was later famously featured in Karl Shuker's book From Flying Toads to Snakes with Wings (1997).

The creature was said to have a face like a toad and to leap out of the water, even though it had no legs. Instead it had large wings.

The solution is that the witnesses are describing a sort of freshwater stingray. Stingrays have raised eyes and faces like toads, and they are known to leap out of water to rid themselves of parasites.

Incidentally, the originals for the African Kongamato and the South American Cuero (hide) were likewise wide flat or winged legless creatures that leaped out of the water: the Kongamato is described as living in the water and being a danger to small canoes because of its unexpected leaping up.

They are leaping up like mini-manta rays, and one of the alternate names for the Cuero is even Manta.

It is also possible that Cueros are 'Covered with eyes' because some South American rays are indeed covered with markings that look like eyespots (ocelli)

MUIRHEAD`S MYSTERIES:A GIANT RAT, AN ENTOMBED BAT AND AN IMPRISONED TOAD - 1812

My blog today covers the well known Fortean phenomenon of entombed animals,but this time with a difference: Entombed toads will be familiar to the dedicated Fortean, but entombed bats may be less familiar.

There was a case of an imprisoned bat or bat-like creature in the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire,U.K. in the 1920s or `30s, but in a fit of paranoia about the occult (because it seemed so weird) about 15 years ago I threw the evidence, in the form of copies of the newspaper cuttings, away. So part of this blog(see below) is an attempt to make up for that error.

Enjoy!

"A rat,of astonishing size,was lately killed at a public house in E.Clarendon,near Guildford (1) it measured from the tip of the nose to the end of the tail,2 feet 3 inches,and was of proportionate bulk." Macclesfield Courier and Stockport Express or Cheshire General Advertiser.(MC & S.E or C.G.A.)March 21st 1812.p.3

"We are informed by a correspondent,that a bat was lately discovered at Astbury (2) in a solid block of stone quaried seven feet from the surface. The bat is described as having ears 7/8 (? figures unclear) of an inch in diameter and curvated like a ram`s horn;it was much larger than the common bat, and on exposure to the air seemed to languish. We shall be obliged to any naturalist amongst our numerous readers, who can inform us what species of bat can live in stone, or what kind of stone is sufficiently porous to permit animal respiration." MC & S.E. or C.G.A. March 21st 1812.p.3

"A live toad was found eight feet below the surface in a solid whitestone rock,in a quarry near Lochrutton (3)" MC & S.E. or C.G.A. June 6th 1812. p.3

(1) Surrey (2) Cheshire (3) Dumfries

TIM MATTHEWS: Toad in the whole

Tim Matthews is one of my best friends, and also - coincidentally - one of the most controversial figures in contemporary forteana. He has been involved with the CFZ for nearly a decade now, raising eyebrows wherever he goes.

“To dream of toads signifies unfortunate adventures. To kill a toad in a dream foretells that your judgment will be harshly criticised.”

A North Lancashire back garden many years ago and a scene of English domestic bliss as I mowed the back garden. It was a small plot but we’d managed to install a pond at the back of the space in to which we tried to encourage as much wildlife as possible. On automatic pilot, the no brain zone that accompanies mowing activity, I was suddenly jolted out of my stupor as a large Natterjack toad appeared, as if by magic, right in front of the blades. It was a male, if the markings were anything to go by (the females are normally much brighter).

I thought I’d cut the friendly toad but, as luck would have it, for me and him, I’d missed by millimetres. Sighing with relief I slowly made my way around to my new found friend and lifted him towards the pond. He didn’t seem to be moving – almost transfixed or, more likely, in shock – but after a few minutes he carried on. It occurred to me, and not for the first time, that people are the biggest threat to the many and varied creatures we find ourselves living with. In the countryside where I lived, it was sad to see the many animals killed on the roads but it was difficult to know what to do about it.

Today, despite man’s continued danger to wildlife everywhere, technology is being used to assist birds, elephants, endangered species and, now, our population of toads. From high technology to low, from supercomputers to the family down the street, it seems that all are welcome in the effort to protect them. Once upon a time toads were associated with everything from magic, folklore, the devil and fairies to female sexuality.

At the annual Toad Fair, formerly held in Dorset every May, charms and potions based on the amphibian’s “magic powers” were sold.Until the 1930s in Cambridgeshire, for example, local toad-a-mancers proclaimed their magic powers. Happily, much of this nonsense has been overtaken by the real power derived from a silicon chip and recent events include the ever popular Google Earth programme having Britain’s 700 Toad Crossings added to it. Log in; access Toad map!

Yes, indeed, toads cross roads and tracks at certain points for approximately six weeks a year. Teams of local volunteers – highly active and enthusiastic in the cause – work to ensure that, on average, between 400 and 1,000 toads in a defined area make it from A to B in safety. Dick and Suzanne Downer, from a Devon-based Toad Patrol unit tell that, in just one night, they have helped no less than 250 toads. In total they might expect to come across 1500 in a season. Their biggest challenge? Dealing with impatient and angry motorists. (Nothing new there then. Toad Rage!)

Nationally, in 2008, another 36 crossing sites were added to the database. Not only do the crossings assist the toads but scientists can more easily survey their overall numbers:

"Google Earth software is allowing wildlife experts to use new creative ways to communicate important conservation issues to an increasingly techno-savvy public," says Jules Howard, Froglife's Head of Communications. (See, Froglife website)

We know that 35,000 toads were carried across Britain’s roads in 2008, and now, using available technology, volunteers and scientists hope that the better picture they are producing of toad activity nationwide will assist Highways officials access better information on local populations.

Next time you’re driving along a road perhaps you might check out the database first and think a little bit harder whilst moving through the Amphibian Zone...

GUEST BLOGGER FLEUR FULCHER: Battletoads - beleaguered batrachians and ambushed anurans

Over, once again to the divine Ms F. Charming as usual, she is taking up cudgels on behalf of the poor downtrodden amphibians of the planet. They are in crisis - but there is good news as well...

Worldwide things are looking dire on the amphibian front, the Chytrid disease has been spreading fast and there is as yet no treatment, one billion frogs also end up as food for humans each year, or used in traditional medicines and rituals.

Yet there are still pieces of good news from the amphibian world, an expedition by Frontiers has discovered 15 new species in Tanzania’s remote mountain forests. Some of these are bizarre looking, brightly coloured and covered in lumps, bumps and growths. But the most unusual characteristic displayed by the newly found Nectophrynoides toads is that they give birth to live offspring rather than laying eggs.

As well as these toads there is a new type of very cute looking burrowing toad belonging to the genus Probreviceps, unfortunately, this little toad is already in danger from habitat loss, the ecologically important forests in which it lives are rapidly being felled.

The success of this expedition shows the need for more exploration into the more remote forests, valleys and mountains to record and protect the animal inhabitants of these places before their homes vanish forever.

If these adorable lumpy bumpy and burrowing toads are not enough to catch your attention to the plight facing our planet’s amphibians then perhaps the ever photogenic tree frog will do the trick, the new one found in Tanzania is from the genus Leptopelis, and I cannot imagine looking into its huge browny gold eyes and telling it I don’t care about frogs and their kin.

It is unfortunate that there are many types of amphibian that are heading towards the same fate as the famous golden toad, but this does not have to happen, if a cure can be found for the disease, important habitats protected and responsible collecting methods for the food and pet trades enforced then who knows how many new species we will find in the future. If those things are not done then it is almost inevitable that many species of amphibian will disappear before science, (and the rest of us) has even had a chance to see them.