Of all the animals that, once you see them, you never want to see them ever again, the Surinam Toad is probably the flattest… unless you count that armadillo I saw on the highway that time. It might be the laziest frog of all time with the exception of the ones I saw in Long Beach… although, come to think of it, those might’ve been just been surfers. Tongueless, nearly eye-less and moving no faster than your average apartment complex, the Surinam Toad is the kind of animal you park on the street and collect the insurance on…
The Surinam Toad (Pipidae Pipi) is indescribable, mostly because I refuse to use the term “dog diarrhea” in my essays. They have tiny eyes which make it difficult to tell if they’ve been surprised. As I already alluded to, their color is an unappetizing brownish green. They are also pre-flattened so they can be passed under doors. The Surinam Toad is called the “Star-fingered Toad” because they are the only amphibian capable of “jazz hands”. Specimens as long as eight inches have been recorded but, without auto-tune, their musical careers went nowhere…
The front legs of p. pipi are practically useless, although I’m not sure what use front legs are to any frog. They do help the animal find food because they contain sensory organs akin to taste/smell and because other animals see those legs, feel sorry for it and give it a bowl of soup. Their back legs are just swell so they’ve got that going for them. They do NOT have tongues so, if you fall in love with one, prepare for a lifetime of non-passionate kisses.
Surinam Toads tend to live in murky waters of South America, where they can catch tiny fish, worms and insects in their jazz-hands. They also scavenge dead animals if it is their day off. Many South American animals live in murky waters, most notable was Chilean poet Pablo Neruda…
Female Surinam toads give birth to live young which is way better than giving birth to dead ones. It isn’t a birth in the way we think of birth: Eggs are laid by the female and deposited by the male under the skin of the females’ backs. The hundred or so eggs develop to tadpole stage at which point they ooze out of the mother and hang out at the mall until they are adults.
There are seven species of Surinam Toad. There could be more but no one wants to get close enough to check.
Arrabal’s Suriname toad (Pipa arrabali): Also called “Rana de celdillas guayanesa” which translates roughly to “Guayanesa cell frog”, which was my nickname for my first girlfriend. Their habitat is swamps and marshes in Venezuela, Brazil and Guyana. There might still be some in Peru, but I won’t know until they’ve responded to my emails.
Common Surinam toad: “Common” is a value judgement and value judgements are wrong. So very very wrong…
Myers’ Surinam toad(Pipa myersi): This one is endangered… and why not? With all the bumps and algae, it looks like a relic taken from the Titanic. It can live thirty meters above sea level. Any higher and it swats at passing airplanes.
Albina Surinam toad (Pipa aspera): Slightly less repulsive than the other Surinam toads, pipa aspera is found in the usual places plus French Guiana. Unlike the other species, can be used as a filler in egg rolls…
Carvalho’s Surinam toad(Pipa carvalhoi): Its eyes are larger than the rest of the Surinam toads, so if any Surinam Toad is destined to be an anime character, it is this one. They tend to exist mostly in Brazil, despite their reluctance to cross-dress for parades.
Sabana Surinam toad(Pipa parva): Unlike Myers’ Surinam Toad, the Sabana Surinam Toad can live up to a thousand feet above sea level. Also, it is not endangered. In some places it is even considered a pest… much like Senator Ted Cruz.
Utinga Surinam toad(Pipa snethlageae): What can be said about the Utinga Surinam Toad that hasn’t already been brought up in the Nuremberg Trials? Suffice it to say, they are definitely aquatic and, if dissected, be rearranged to form practically any other toad.
There are some who say that the Surinam Toad is not a true toad. It is a tongueless creature with no eyes that lives in muddy waters and it LOOKS like a toad, kinda. As far as I’m concerned, the Surinam Toad is and always will be as toad as that car I used to double park all the time…
Potatoes and the Promise of More Potatoes 