Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Lets say an Eastern hognose chews on a toad awhile, but the toad kicks free. Will the hognose saliva kill it anyway, or is the toad truly "gonna live to see another day?"
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...and I think to myself, "What a wonderful world."

Well, truthfully, in all my hogs that have eaten toads, the toad never gets away(sorta negates the question doesn't it). Hypotheticallly, I would expect the poison would work on the toad in a relatively short amount of time and probably kill it depending on length of time, size, ect. I have seen toads hold on for quite a while before dying, but most of the time they really do slow down a fair amount fairly quickly. I have also seen toads that were regurged by hogs. It is not a pretty sight...lots of damage around the area where the venom was injected and a fair amount of blood. Andy
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Andy Maddox
Houston Herp Key
The Reptizone

Burgundy baby, With your blue eyed soul, You play the hits and I'm on that roll, Capricorn sister, Freddie Mercury, Jupiter Child cry

I would like to counter that by saying that hognoses are known for regurgitating live toads. Apparently their saliva must not have that strong of an effect?
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...the oldest task in human history: to live on a piece of land without spoiling it."
Aldo Leopold (1938)

"Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us."
Calvin and Hobbes

My brother in law stumbled across a thick black snake in his front yard that was trying to eat a toad. HE ID'd it as a hognose (who knows?). His cat was messing with it, and the toad got away. He said it "kind of stumbled away."
Then he grabbed the snake by the tail and chunked it over the fence.
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...and I think to myself, "What a wonderful world."

Since hogs are rear-fanged...that the only way a hognose is going to get any significant amount of venom into a toad is by getting one hell of a good bite and chewing on it...in which case...it ain't gettin' away.

If it bites and isn't able to hold on and chew...likely the toad isn't going to receive any venom and will live another day to hop out in front of a car or something.

You gotta educate this guy that hognoses are harmless to people and he should not go a-fence-chunkin' with them...ok?

On the plus side, chunking it probably saved it from the cat. Sounds like an Eastern hog to me (yeah, I'm an expert, I only know 'cause I just saw one on TV).
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Peter: It's OK, I'll handle it. I read a book about something like this.
Brian: Are you sure it was a book? Are you sure it wasn't NOTHING?

REason the toad escaped-it was a blotched water snake.
The reason a water snake was in the front yard-because they recently sealed up the entire runoff creek a block away for development.
nice,huh?
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...and I think to myself, "What a wonderful world."

I think that it is a misconception that since they are called rear fanged that the food must go all the way to the back of the mouth in order to be envenomated. The "fangs" are actually located underneath the eyes which is only halfway down an open mouth. From what I've seen from Hognose feeding behavior (swinging their open mouth wildly) that it is not hard to get the fangs latched on if they get any grip at all.

>>Since hogs are rear-fanged...that the only way a hognose is going to get any significant amount of venom into a toad is by getting one hell of a good bite and chewing on it...in which case...it ain't gettin' away.
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>>If it bites and isn't able to hold on and chew...likely the toad isn't going to receive any venom and will live another day to hop out in front of a car or something.
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...the oldest task in human history: to live on a piece of land without spoiling it."
Aldo Leopold (1938)

"Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us."
Calvin and Hobbes