Rosemary Pomponio, age 13, of Fairport.. N.Y., for her question:
Is the horned toad related to the garden toad?
No, the horned toad is not related to the ordinary garden hop toad. Each of them has his own family tree and if the two of they could talk things over, they would both have plenty to brag about. The hop toad belongs to the class Amphibia and his family tree goes back some 340 million years. The horned toad is a lizard of the class Reptilia and his family tree is not quite so old by a few million years. however, there was a time when his ancient relatives ruled the world for more than 100 million years. At that time, the dominant animals were reptiles and the horned toad who is really a horned lizard can claim the mighty dinosaurs among his relatives.
At first glance, there are certain resemblances between the hop toad and the so called horned toad. Both are squat, four legged animals not more than a few inches long. Both have big, f roggy mouths and both enjoy insect meat. You can spot one big difference at a glance. The horned lizard has a tail, sometimes a third as long as his body. The hop toad has no tail in fact he is classed as a tailless amphibian.
The word amphibian is the key feature in the life of the hop toad. It means land and water and every toad must spend his kindergarten days in or near the water. Later he may desert his watery cradle and take to the fields and even the prairies. His ancestors may have bean the first backboned animals to conquer life on the dry land. But they have always had to return to the water to lay their eggs. And the kindergarten days of every toad are spent as a fishy little tadpole.
The lizards learned to cope with the dry land later than the toads, but they did ~L better job of it. Certain horned toads lay 20 to 30 little white eggs in the ground. There they hatch into miniature copies of their parents. Other horned toads give birth to live babies, maybe a dozen of them at one time. The only water needed by a horned toad is that which he laps from the dewy desert grasses.
The skin is another clue to the vast difference between these two look alikes. The toad has a clammy skin. The horned lizard is covered with scales. For this reason, the hop toad cannot stand long periods of drought. He soon becomes dried out. The horned lizard loves dry desert weather and he is not comfortable when the temperature is below 70 degrees. Wherever you find a horned lizards his color matches his background. Those that live in sandy soil are mottled with pale tans, those that live in red soil are red. There they squat with their fringes of spikes merging with the ground, hoping that you will not notice them,
When captured,, both the hop toad and the horned lizard make fascinating pets. The garden toad needs a moist cool home and the horned lizard likes a warm dry copy of his favorite desert. Both eat live insects, which shows that in the wild, both these can be rated as our friends.