… the toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in its head. Shakespeare’s contemporaries carried on their persons, usually in rings, certain “stones” cut from the heads of big, old toads.

In an unusual turn for an unassuming species, a desert amphibian is at the center of both a potential ecological crisis and an evolving question of drug policy. The creature in question is the ...

The Sonoran Desert Toad, with glands secreting a venom rich in the hallucinogens 5-MeO-DMT and bufotenin, is invading Arizona now that monsoon conditions have kicked in for the late summer. They can ...