Mummified Toad

While bending down, examining the garden for slugs and other creatures, I found myself eye-to-eye with a peculiar-looking toad among the lilies: its eyes never moved and they were bizarrely sunken in the sockets. Still innocently thinking it was alive, for in my defense it was in a very lifelike posture, I crept closer, only to find that it had no eyes! In fact, its body was shrunken and that posture was the same it had held when it died! I couldn't believe it. I had seen toads and frogs before, but I had never seriously considered how they departed from this world. Apparently this toad didn't lay down and die, but met its demise sitting up in the manner of its species. I wonder how it experienced death, whether it felt any pain or fear or simply stopped breathing one moment. Sometimes I think our human knowledge of death makes it more difficult for us to face it. I don't know if an animal can anticipate its death, but then again that ignorance may make its situation all the more terrifying, as it has no rational explanation for it.

Anyway, I believe this toad may have once belonged to the subspecies Bufo americanus americanus, the Eastern American Toad, as I've found two specimens in our backyard already over the last few weeks. It's remarkably well-preserved and a good example of natural mummification. After it died, its body merely became more and more desiccated until it was nothing but skin and bones...or was it? I had intended to keep the toad in a plastic container in my room, despite its creepiness, but on opening the lid one day, the issuing smell forced me to alter my plans. Evidently not all of the toad's internal organs and tissues had decayed. Let's just say the toad is in "a better place" now.

In his "natural habitat":

He was attached to the piece of wood, so I just carried him into the sun. If you look closely you can see slime trails on the wood and the toad (particularly between his toes): the slugs must have climbed over him in their nighttime journeys.

Then I decided to hold him up to get some better angles.