THE HORNED TOAD

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 81, 5 April 1923, Page 5

THE HORNED TOAD

The horned toad rather than the camel should be the Prohibitionist's emblem, says the "Popular Science Monthly," of America, That this animal can live for 119 days not only without water, but in an absolutely dry atmosphere, has been demonstrated by Professor F. G. Hall, of the University of Wisconsin. The scaly, impervious" skin on the toad prevents evaporation from its body, it is found, while its organs are adapted to excrete insoluble crystals of uric acid instead of fluid. Any water absorbed when the .toad does take a drink. remains in the body, keeping the blood fluid almost indefinitely. How ■well the animal is protected is shown by the fact that after four months in an atmosphore made absolutely dry by enclosing a pan of concentrated sulphuric acid in the container, the toad lost only 35 per cent, of its weight. Under the same conditions an angle-worm lost 65 per cent, in four hours, and warm-blooded animals would have lost weight nearly as fast. Unlike the toad experimented upon by Professor Hall, the camel does not really go without a. drink, but simply converts stored up fat into moisture. An Arab picks out a earned with a fat, well-de-veloped hump ,for travel" in the desert. The camel will not drink on the journey, but at the end of the trip the hump is thin and shrunken.. As the camel's tissues start to dry, the oxygen dissolved in the blood attacks the fat and changes it into water. Since part of this "matabolic water" comes from the air, a pound of fat makes several pounds of fluid.