Bufo with problems

[Peter Oefinger]

Hi,
does anyone know which kind of desease this toad is suffering?

Regards
Peter

[Mario Schweiger]

Hello Peter,

these are eggs from the toad- or goldfly (Lucilio silvorum or Lucilia bufonivora).
The fly lay her eggs on the toads back or head. The larvae live in the nose of the toad, feeding on toads tuissues and brain.
Toads are killed within a few days.

Read this article (in German):
http://www.bn-ottobrunn.de/html/krotenfliege.html

If you have the toad somewhere, you may wash away the eggs before they hatch!

Mario

[Andre Schmid]

Thats realy ugly but nice nature document, finger crossed for the bufo

regards Andre

[Jürgen Gebhart]

I heard about it and I found from time to time Bufos with destroyed Noses, but I never saw the eggs before.

[Ilian Velikov]

I've seen only photos of that Bufo noses..It does look nasty ..Poor toads! In my hometown we have a small pond in the woods which I often visit! There used to be a huge population of Bufo bufo breeding in that pond and the shore was black with tiny toadlets when they emerged! This spring I expected to observe the same but this time there were almost no toads ...in a place where I used to see big balls of mating toads!!! Could those flies whipe out almost an entire population?

[Mario Schweiger]

@ Ilian
I don´t think so.
These flies have 2 (max. 3 generations) a year.
They may kill some percent of a population, but for sure not the entire one (last would be not effective for the fly - no hosts, no further generations).
But search the web for
"Lucilia bufonivora".
More than 1´000 entries at Google.

Mario

[Pierre-Yves Vaucher]

here is my page, be careful, schoking pictures....
http://www.batraciens-reptiles.com/luci ... nivora.htm
About 10 people wrote me this year to show me some pictures, especially in the north part of France and Belgium...

[GertJan Verspui]

Horrible pictures, looks even more nasty then the bot-fly larva in my friends leg last year