Preface
The poster for the movie Cane Toads: An Unnatural History shows a grinning young girl holding up her enormous and, to put it mildly, not especially aesthetically pleasing pet toad. I don’t know what it is with girls and toads, but when I was about the same age as Cane Toad girl, I tried to adopt a toad. My parents stymied the adoption, claiming I’d get warts.
So far, no one has written to my science Q&A column in the San Diego Union-Tribune to ask about the putative link between warts and toads, but just for the record, toads don’t cause warts. Their rough, wartlike skin is an adaptation to protect them against the elements. It may also be a failed adaptation to stop little girls from dressing toads in dolls’ clothes.
Young minds have ...
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