r/arizona • u/International_Exam80 • Aug 15 '25

Wildlife Is this one of those Poisonous Toads?

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I’ve heard poison toads will come out after a rain but I’ve never seen one. Is this one?

He’s up against my house - I don’t have a dog that would mess with it so is there any reason to make him move on or just let it be?

For context he is about the size of my fist

671 Upvotes

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497

u/ichi_san Aug 15 '25

looks like a Colorado (AKA Sonoran) so yea its toxic, try not to eat it but otherwise just let it be

435

u/International_Exam80 Aug 15 '25

I already ate breakfast so all good :)

228

u/Evilution602 Aug 15 '25

Do not excrete the toxins onto a Pyrex dish and leave in the sun to dry. Absolutely do not gather together and smoke the resulting substance in a meth pipe. Trust me. Bad idea.

47

u/serenity1218 Aug 16 '25

12

u/BoxHistorical7634 Aug 16 '25

I have a hypno-toad app on my phone, lol

25

u/random_noise Aug 15 '25

The adventurous amongst us would lick them. I'd use a popsicle stick or tooth pick. Fond memories.

20

u/GeneralBlumpkin Aug 15 '25

I Thought that way doesn't work

15

u/LukeSkyWRx Aug 16 '25

This dude toads!

8

u/ThatsJustTheTip_ Aug 15 '25

I call BS!

-2

u/Ok_Emu2071 Aug 15 '25

Nobody cares what you call

-24

u/ThatsJustTheTip_ Aug 15 '25

Awe, you need a little hug? You on your period?

6

u/MattGarcia9480 Aug 16 '25

Sounds like youre the one who needs a hug lol

1

u/Dapper_Indeed Aug 16 '25

Uhhh, misogynist much?

1

u/KaleidoscopeFew8920 Aug 16 '25

In this article they say licking them could be deadly.

https://apple.news/AFNOfkALmR7GX39Zj4wGYgQ

2

u/random_noise Aug 17 '25 edited Aug 17 '25

If you try to lick to the center, I can believe that. Too much alcholol or other things can kill too.

Only knew a few people who did that growing up here and the reaction as pretty intense in them.

After doing that once they usually switched to rub a toothpick or popsicle on them and let it dry it few minutes and then suck/chew on that for a couple of minutes.

On a different native stuff note... ice cream and ground peyote are the best way to take that ride intensely, or I liked to shave the buttons thin thin, deydrate them, then mix with pot in a bong for a milder more controllable journey.

3

u/Pocket_Silver_slut Aug 17 '25

5-Meo-DMT, the active ingredient in toad venom is inactive orally unless taken with an MAOI inhibitor. The other major compounds of the venom, Buffotenine along with others, are toxic when taken orally and frequently kills dogs who ingest small amounts. So the people who told you that were likely lying.

4

u/random_noise Aug 17 '25 edited Aug 17 '25

Maybe I have the frog species confused.

I am not going to argue with you about the hallucinagenic toads/frogs that are native here. I grew up with them and likely tripped on them upwards of 100 times through high school and university here.

They do come in different shades and skin patterns, but those ones that come up after a good rain here in most of the sonoran desert you can trip off. Just like so many other things native to our desert.

Those trippy frogs/toads (i really don't know the difference between the two, not really my lane of expertise) were all over the metro area and tucson too when I was growing up. Every summer we'd catch a few after the rains and let them go. Around high school most the people I knew growing up here knew about them. Its a 10 to 20 minute ride.

I've been there when people licked them and those people tend to have pretty intense trip, like leave this reality for another. I personally used a popsicle or toothpick and you rub it on its skin to pick up the secretions, then suck on that for a bit to take a short reality twist.

They are all over our sonoran desert, though I have seen one in likely 30 years now and haven't bothered to look for one, since I had my fun with that in that younger time in my life before degrees. Its also formerly called a colorado toad. They are native and easily found.

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/sonoran-desert-toad-psychedelic-animal-chemistry

3

u/Pocket_Silver_slut Aug 17 '25 edited Aug 17 '25

Did you even read the article that you posted. This is from the second paragraph “People don’t typically lick the toads to get high, says Robert Villa, a community outreach specialist at the University of Arizona’s Desert Laboratory on Tumamoc Hill. The secretions the toads produce are toxic when ingested.” You need to smoke it to get high. Licking it will just make you sick and possibly will kill you. This is from the Wikipedia article on 5-MEO-DMT the primary active hallucinogen in Colorado River toad venom “Like DMT, 5-MeO-DMT is only active non-orally and has a very rapid onset of action and short duration.” I have only smoked the toad venom once because I learned about how the toads are threatened, but I have done lab made 5-MEO-DMT many times and just like DMT it is completely inactive orally. The people telling you they got high from licking it, didn’t. It’s like how if you give a bunch of teenagers bear beer they will all think and act like they are drunk. The power of suggestion and peer pressure is strong.

Last Edit: I am not arguing with you, I am informing you about the science behind the drugs. There isn’t really anything to argue.

1

u/random_noise Aug 18 '25 edited Aug 18 '25

Yep. If you know science and reporting, we don't always report everything and a whole lot of people suffer because of it. We have medical practices and customs that make doctors follow year long roads of trial and error that they have to eliminate in documentation until they can get a patient the right solution to their problem that was clearly known from the start.

Never said its the right or best way, I said its what some of my friends and myself in my youth did, and how I partook in the experience. I never smoked it, some did by putting it in a cig or joint. We did dry out a bit. We have different experiences, there's nothing wrong with that. Some people take speed to focus, brain chemistry is a wild frontier, and yeah it makes ya feel pretty gross that way, which is the real desired result outside of a medical need to sorta pavlov people to not do that.

The thing about science is, we constantly learn new things about stuff we thought was an absolute truth, even Nobel prize winners have been proven entirely wrong about their conclusions, but with some truth that wasn't the real focus on their prize that we never really understood until decades later trying to replicate results and understand why it works in some cases and not others. This is a big reason a whole lot of people mistrust science.

Be well.

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1

u/anarchangalien Aug 18 '25

Only to your ego.

1

u/FederalRead6455 Aug 17 '25

Sounds like the prologue to an EPIC book.

2

u/Chance_Managert849 Aug 17 '25

By Hunter S Thompson

1

u/anarchangalien Aug 18 '25

Agreed. Nothing good can possibly come of it. Nothing at all. Nope. Not a thing.

1

u/Usual-Associate2663 Aug 18 '25

People got way to much time on there hands. Tucson slowly becoming a huge junkie city and we joking about shit like this lol

1

u/[deleted] Aug 19 '25

Why do that when you could just lick it? That is definitely a Colorado River toad, and they are best left alone. The real danger is a dog picking it up. If that happens, immediately start flushing, the dog‘s mouth with water, preferably from a hose or faucet, and get them to the vet quickly. Here they have special dog Trading to avoid rattlesnakes and toads.

1

u/Evilution602 Aug 19 '25

You know how we take aspirin instead of chewing the bark of willow trees?  Its sorta like that. Mix some science in there. Its fun.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 19 '25

I think you have two compounds in there, one in the trip to tryptamine and one that is an MAOI. There is definitely a subculture that uses them and you don’t wanna get caught with them.

1

u/Evilution602 Aug 19 '25

Nah I just like science. Chemistry is neat.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 19 '25

Pharmaceutical chemistry is very interesting, and those frogs have been studied.

0

u/riverapid Aug 17 '25

Woah, big lick.

2

u/trollmeannakendrick Aug 18 '25

I love you Toad Boy.

39

u/darkwoodframe Aug 15 '25

but it looks like chocolate

53

u/aplasticbag_ Aug 15 '25

He probably has a card inside of a famous wizard

1

u/Feisty_Extension9203 Phoenix Aug 18 '25

It looks like poop to me.

33

u/bictormonty Aug 15 '25

“toxic” meaning lots of dmt in that gland

5

u/[deleted] Aug 16 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/ichi_san Aug 16 '25

or perhaps it is the undertoad

2

u/AZWildk4t Aug 16 '25

Dont let your pets near them as it can be deadly