Animals eat some strange things but few are as strange as the bat-eating frog. The toad in this photo may look like he got the best of the bad, but just a few minutes after the picture was taken, the toad spit the bat back out. The bat appeared to be a little big dazed, but eventually got up and flew away into the night.
A park ranger discovered the toad in mid-bite and snapped the photo just in time. The toad in the photo is a cane toad. Yufani Olaya, the park ranger who photographed the off site, said,
“Out of nowhere the bat just flew directly into the mouth of the toad, which almost seemed to be sitting with its mouth wide open,”
Greg Pauly of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County said that the bat was likely on the ground or flying low to look for insects when the toad snatched him up in one giant gulp. He went on to say, Cane toads will spend time at pools and creeks, where they forage for food and also breed,” he wrote in an email to The Times. “Many bats also spend a lot of time around water where they also forage.”
Other photos of toads eating large animals like bats have been captured before and according to scientists, it is fairly common. If the toad cannot swallow the prey in its mouth it will simply spit it out. As long as the victim did not suffocate while in the toad’s mouth, it can get away.
Image from Q13Fox.
