Stories from Texas

Stories from Texas > All Episodes

May 30, 2018

Where Have All The Horny Toads Gone?

By: W.F. Strong

A couple of weeks ago I read a book called “The Lion the Living Room,” which was about how our domestic cats are just little lions. I thought, ‘that’s nothing. I grew up with dinosaurs in the alley.’

They looked for all the world like little dinosaurs – at least to us kids they did. When you’d get down on their level, lying on the ground, seeing them eye to eye, they looked prehistoric and formidable. You had to be careful, being eye to eye that way, because they could shoot blood out of theirs. You also couldn’t stay on the ground too long because the little dinosaurs’ favorite prey would soon be all over you – big red ants – harvester ants. They’d eat 100 of those red ants a day.

The dinosaur I’m talking about, so plentiful in my boyhood, was the horny toad. They were also called horn frogs or horned lizards, and we considered those the scientific names for them. We were wrong, though. The truly scientific name is Phrynosoma Cornutum.

Where have all the horny toads gone? When I was ten, I could walk out in the back alley, a landscape of caliche and goat heads, and you could find dozens of horny toads in just a few minutes. Even though we were barefoot much of the summer, we never went out there barefoot. Stepping on a Lego barefoot is almost imperceptible compared to the attention stepping on a horny toad will command. It will certainly focus your mind as few things can. Goat heads, too, have earned no small share of respect in this regard.

Many people theorize that horny toads, officially listed as endangered in Texas since 1977, have disappeared because of pesticides or the arrival of the fire ants.

“As always, it isn’t one thing,” says Bill Brooks, a founding member of the Horned Lizard Conservation Society of Texas. He told me that “it’s a combination of things” that created a perfect storm of bad news for horny toads.

Brooks said these include the “destruction of habitat, over collection by us humans, feral cats, blue grass taking over, reducing hiding spaces, pesticide use, and yes, also the invasion of fire ants.”

The first challenge for horny toads was the crazy promotions run by businesses, particularly movie theaters and gas stations back in the ’60s. You could get a free or half-priced ticket at some movie theaters by just showing up with a horny toad. Sometimes gas stations would give you a free gallon of gas for a horny toad. I have no idea what they did with them. Perhaps they sold them by putting ads in the back of comic books, the Ebay of that day, and shipped them up north where no doubt their days in some eight year old’s shoe box were numbered. The lion in the living room may have been involved.

Bill Brooks said that he has seen coyotes try to eat them, but rarely successfully. The horny toads release a foul-tasting chemical from their eyes and the coyotes drop them. They are also quite good at puffing themselves up and looking quite menacing which gives them some added protection against coyotes, and snakes, too.

And then the fire ants drove out the red ants, which the horny toads won’t eat. Having been bit by both, I understand their reluctance.

Sadly, the horny toads are fighting a losing battle for survival. You can find them where people are not. There are still a good number on remote ranches. “Around Kenedy,” Bill told me, “there are healthy numbers.”

Just sad to hear of their plight. I do miss the little guys. To me they are as Texas as rattlesnakes, longhorns or Willie Nelson, which is why they are the Official Texas State Reptile.


Episodes

January 29, 2025

John Steinbeck (and Charley) on Texas

Steinbeck’s comments about Texas and Texans go well beyond his “Texas is a state of mind” quote. Texas Standard commentator W.F. Strong explores.

Listen

December 31, 2024

Do you have a favorite W.F. Strong story? Here are our top 10

Texas Standard is celebrating its 10th birthday by looking back on 10 years of covering Texas. One way we’re going to do that is with top 10 lists. We started by counting down our top 10 Stories from Texas from commentator W.F. Strong.

Listen

December 19, 2024

Fronters and backers

Some of the most frustrating hours of our lives might be spent in a vehicle. After some hard times on the road, nothing can feel better than the perfect parking spot at the place you need to be. But how will you pull in? Texas Standard commentator WF Strong has some thoughts.

Listen

December 4, 2024

A tale of a stolen town

On the western side of the Panhandle, right on the Texas/New Mexico border are two towns that were established just a few years apart in the late 1800s. They were separated by a line as thin as a goal line. They both still exist today — with populations of less than 1,500 each. But Texas […]

Listen

November 20, 2024

How some donated land became a bounty for a small town’s students

Texas Standard commentator WF Strong says the Gruver Farm Scholarship Foundation has already made a multi-generational impact.

Listen

November 7, 2024

Could Napoleon have ruled over Texas?

A strongman politician is something we’ve heard a lot about recently. This Stories From Texas is about a strongman from history and a plan to set him up anew in Texas. Texas Standard Commentator W.F. Strong dug up this story — one that you probably didn’t hear about in Texas history, for one, because it […]

Listen

October 23, 2024

A second siege of the Alamo

Even though the words “Remember the Alamo” are available on t-shirts, bumper-stickers, and kitchen kitsch, the Alamo wasn’t always remembered with the reverence it is today. For a long time, the Alamo was used mostly as a warehouse. Even the church, which people rather universally think of as the Alamo, was used as an army […]

Listen

October 10, 2024

My brush with fate or serendipity

Sometimes things happen in the world that just seem too coincidental to be coincidental. We have lots of words to describe these moments — luck, serendipity, maybe fate or destiny, perhaps a miracle? Texas Standard Commentator WF Strong remembers one of these moments he just can’t explain.

Listen