Toxins from toads have long been known to contain rich chemicals with great pharmaceutical potential. Recent studies have shown more than 100 such chemical components, including peptides, steroids, indole alkaloids, bufogargarizanines, organic acids,...
Toad skin and toad venom, as two kinds of Chinese medicine, are prepared from Bufo bufo gargarizans Cantor and Bufo melanostictus Schneider. However, they display distinct properties in traditional application, and the hydrophilic ingredients are the...
Toad venom is a traditional Chinese medicine with high medicinal value. The existing quality evaluation standards of toad venom have obvious limitations because of the lack of research on proteins. Thus, it is necessary to screen suitable quality mar...
A new indole alkaloid named bufobutarginine (1), along with three known bufotenines, namely, serotonin (2), bufotenidine (3), and bufotenine (4), were isolated from the water extract of toad venom. Their structures were elucidated by spectral methods...
Toad venom, a dried product of secretion from Bufo bufo gargarizans Cantor or Bufo melanostictus Schneider, has had the therapeutic effects of hepatocellular carcinoma confirmed. Bufalin and cinobufagin were considered as the two most representative...
Two new indole alkaloids, Bufotenidine B (2) and Bufocarboline A (6), along with seven known indole alkaloids (1, 3–5, and 7–9) and three organic acids (10–12), were isolated from the water extract of toad venom. The structures of t...
Melanoma is the most common cancer in young adults, with a constantly increasing incidence. Metastatic melanoma is a very aggressive cancer with a 5-year survival rate of about 22−25%. This is, in most cases, due to a lack of therapies which ar...
Most zoonotic pathogens originate from mammals and avians, but viral diversity and related biosafety risk assessment in lower vertebrates also need to be explored. Amphibians are an important group of lower vertebrates that played a momentous role in...
Passive integrated transponder (PIT) and visible implant elastomer (VIE) tags are commonly used to identify reptiles, amphibians, and fish. Despite reports of good retention rates and little to no negative effect on survival time, migration remains a...
The geographic variation in life-history traits of organisms and the mechanisms underlying adaptation are interesting ideas in evolutionary biology. This study investigated age and body size of the Asian common toad (Duttaphrynus melanostictus) among...
Nematodes of the genus Oswaldocruzia are common parasites of the small intestine of amphibians and reptiles. Our recent molecular analysis of Oswaldocruzia nematodes revealed that only Oswaldocruzia filiformis, which possesses high morphological vari...
(1) Background: Toad venom (Bufonis Venenum, known as ‘Chansu’ in Chinese), the secretion of the ear-side gland and skin gland of Bufo gargarizans cantor or Duttaphrynus melanostictus Schneider, has been utilized to treat several diseases...
Since Rhinella sp. toads produce bioactive substances, some species have been used in traditional medicine and magical practices by ancient cultures in Peru. During several decades, the Rhinella horribilis toad was confused with the invasive toad Rhi...
Amphibians are widely known as a prolific source of bioactive metabolites. In this work, we isolated and characterized compounds with antiparasitic activity from the oocytes of the toad Rhinella alata collected in Panama. Bio-guided isolation and str...
Toads in the family Bufonidae contain bufadienolides in their venom, which are characterized by their chemical diversity and high pharmacological potential. American trypanosomiasis is a neglected disease that affects an estimated 8 million people in...
Ranaviruses have been involved in amphibian mass mortality events worldwide. Effective screening to control this pathogen is essential; however, current sampling methods are unsuitable for the detection of subclinical infections. Non-lethal screening...
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The Morato’s digger toad (Proceratophrys moratoi) inhabits Brazilian moist savannas and is critically endangered due to its very limited geographic distribution, reduced number of isolated populations, and evidence of population decline and local ext...
The euthanasia of cane toads under field conditions presents a number of logistical and animal welfare challenges. One recommended method of control involves the use of carbon dioxide in plastic bags. This paper describes the minimum amount of time (...
Species of the family Bufonidae, better known as true toads, are widespread and produce bioactive substances in the secretions obtained from specialized skin macroglands. Some true toads have been employed as a folk remedy to treat infectious disease...
Toxin-like proteins and peptides of skin secretions from amphibians play important physiological and pathological roles in amphibians. βγ-CAT is a Chinese red-belly toad-derived pore-forming toxin-like protein complex that consists of aero...
Amphibian populations are threatened globally by stressors, including diminishing availability of suitable wetland breeding sites, altered hydroregimes driven by changing weather patterns, and exposure to contaminants. Ecological risk assessment shou...
The sublethal toxicity of diazinon to the adult African toad, Bufo regularis was assessed using an integration of biomarkers. Changes in acetylcholinesterase (AChE), corticosterone and total protein levels were assessed in the serum, brain, liver, lu...
The anti-predator behaviour of green toad (Bufotes balearicus) tadpoles was investigated by exposing them to only the visual or chemical cues, or a combination of both, of a native predator, southern hawker Aeshna cyanea. We collected green toad egg...
Machine learning approaches for pattern recognition are increasingly popular. However, the underlying algorithms are often not open source, may require substantial data for model training, and are not geared toward specific tasks. We used open-source...
Adaptive evolution is the process by which organisms change their morphological, physiological and biochemical characteristics to adapt to different environments during long-term natural selection. Especially, researching variation in organ size can...
This study provides novel data on circulating concentrations of whole-blood fatty acids (FAs) in marine toads (Rhinella marina) via dried blood spot (DBS) card technology as a potential amphibian model species. Free-ranging (n = 10) animals were comp...
The biological activity of Rhinella icterica parotoid secretion (RIPS) and some of its chromatographic fractions (RI18, RI19, RI23, and RI24) was evaluated in the current study. Mass spectrometry of these fractions indicated the presence of sarmentog...
Aboriginals of Latin America have used DMT (N,N-dimethyltryptamine) in ritualistic ceremonies for centuries. Nevertheless, there are limited data on web users’ interest concerning DMT. We aim to review the literature and explore the spatial&nda...
Due to their assumed costs, simultaneous antipredator strategies are expected to face trade-offs, which, however, could be milder in individuals subjected to a more intense predator pressure. In this work, I studied the relationship between locomotio...
The intestinal microbiota is vital for host immunity and metabolism, and its changes are associated with the development stage of hosts. However, little is known regarding how growth and development of anurans affect the diversity of their microbiota...
Amphibians, as the most threatened group of vertebrates, are the focus of investigation of various agents that could affect their fitness and survival. In this context, we examined the effects of naturally occurring bacteria and their combinations on...
A nano-flow high-resolution screening platform, featuring a parallel chip-based microfluidic bioassay and mass spectrometry coupled to nano-liquid chromatography, was applied to screen animal venoms for nicotinic acetylcholine receptor like (nAChR) a...
The gut microbiome is important for host health and can be influenced by environmental and hormonal changes. We studied the interactions between anthropogenic land use, glucocorticoid hormones, and gut bacterial communities in common toads (Bufo bufo...
In this brief article, the green toad (Bufotes sitibundus) and the Levant water frog (Pelophylax bedriagae) were compared to better understand the adaptations needed by amphibians, specifically the green toad, to survive in arid regions and to inhabi...
Environmental variation likely modifies the life-history traits of vertebrates. As ectothermic vertebrates, it is possible that the body size of amphibians is impacted by environmental conditions. Here, we firstly quantified age and body size variati...
The Rio Pescado stubfoot toad (Atelopus balios) is a critically endangered member of the struggling Atelopus genus which has been ravaged by the fungal pathogen Batrachochytridium dendrobatidis. Captive management of this species is crucial to improv...
The traditional Chinese medicine toad venom (Venenum bufonis) has been extensively used to treat various diseases, including cancers, in China and other Southeast Asian countries. The major constituents of toad venom, e.g., bufadienolides and alkaloi...
Reproductive investments influenced by environmental conditions vary extensively among geographically distinct populations. However, investigations of patterns of intraspecific variation in male reproductive investments and the mechanisms shaping thi...
Genetic adaptation to extremes is a fascinating topic. Nevertheless, few studies have explored the genetic adaptation of closely related species respectively inhabiting distinct extremes. With deep transcriptome sequencing, we attempt to detect the g...
Animal venoms, widespread throughout the world, are complex mixtures, the composition of which depends on the venom-producing species. The objective of this study was to contribute to the development of animal venom-based medicines by investigating t...
Habitat fragmentation is widely recognized as a contributor to the decline of biodiversity, with amphibians one of the key groups impacted. To understand the effects of habitat fragmentation on amphibian populations requires long-term data sets showi...
The advent and adoption of Web 2.0 technologies offers a powerful approach to enhancing the capture of information in natural resource ecology, notably community knowledge of species distributions. Such information has previously been collected using...
Anthropogenic influences such as deforestation, increased infrastructure, and general urbanization has led to a continuous loss in biodiversity. Amphibians are especially affected by these landscape changes. This study focuses on the population genet...
In short-term earthquake risk forecasting, the avoidance of false alarms is of utmost importance to preclude the possibility of unnecessary panic among populations in seismic hazard areas. Unusual animal behaviour prior to earthquakes has been report...
Declining wetland areas cause many amphibian species to breed inside stormwater ponds (SWPs), which have been constructed alongside major roads to collect and retain polluted road runoff water. However, the suitability of such artificial ponds as a b...
Corticosterone (CORT) is a key glucocorticoid hormone that regulates energy balance and physiological responses to environmental stressors, making it a valuable biomarker for assessing how organisms cope with changing conditions. Understanding how am...
Common toads have been used since ancient times for remedies and thus constitute excellent biological material for pharmacological and natural product research. According to the results of a previous analysis of the therapeutic use of amphibians in S...
Detailed molecular genetic research on amphibian populations has a significant role in understanding the genetic adaptability to local environments. The oriental fire-bellied toads (Bombina orientalis) were artificially introduced to Beijing from Sha...
Disruptive selection arises when extreme phenotypes have a fitness advantage compared to more-intermediate phenotypes. Theory and evidence suggest that intraspecific resource competition is a key driver of disruptive selection. However, while competi...
Biological sex is one of the more critically important physiological parameters needed for managing threatened animal species because it is crucial for informing several of the management decisions surrounding conservation breeding programs. Near-inf...
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