Mike in the Wild

I have to admit that I didn't think I'd ever spend any time writing about toads or other amphibians calling Arizona home.  Of course I've seen frogs in some of the shallower ends of our ponds and lakes and I've noticed tadpoles in seasonal streams.  And I might have noticed toads jumping in a field on a camping trip to the White mountains many years ago.  But it's reptiles, another of the  animal kingdom's five most well-known classes of vertebrates, with their vast number of lizard, snake and turtle varieties that seem to thrive in and dominate this arid state.  In fact the common horny toad isn't even a toad, he's a horned lizard.  So even our amphibians are actually reptiles! Well it actually turns out that amphibians that includes all the true frogs, toads and salamanders are well represented by more than two dozen unique species in the Grand Canyon state.  And they don't all rely on the damned and managed lakes and waterways that provide most ...