Are Horned Frogs still around?

By Murray Montgomery
Staff Writer

Many years ago, when I was only a little fellow, it wasn’t unusual at all to come across a “Horny Toad” in Daddy’s garden. We lived on the Burnet Road back then; it was way out in the country a few miles from Austin. I dare say that the location we thought of as way out in the country back then, would probably be about the center of Austin now.

Yeah, we were so far out in the country that we had to drive into town just to get water. Daddy would put a 55-gallon drum on the back of his old Chevy pickup and go to where the city’s water trucks reloaded when wetting down dirt roads. Because he just had to live in the country, we moved away from the comforts of town to a rock house near some of Momma’s cedar-chopping kinfolks. The place didn’t have a well or indoor plumbing. It did have plenty of rattlesnakes and scorpions. However, there was a beer joint just down the road, and in those days that’s about all the convenience Daddy needed. 

But I digress, this is supposed to be about horned frogs. I remember Daddy always told me to leave the little critters alone because they were good for his garden – they ate ants and such. The actual name for this prehistoric-looking creature is Horned Lizard (Phrynosoma cornutum). According to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD), “They are not amphibians like other toads, but are reptiles with scales, claws and young produced on land. More than a dozen different species of horned lizards are found throughout western North America.”

The horned lizard began to disappear in the mid-1950s, but before that you could find them just about anywhere in the drier portions of the state. Because horned lizards dig for hibernation, nesting and insulation purposes, they commonly are found in loose sand or loamy soils. I recall that after my family moved to the coast, we never saw one of these cute little rascals again.

Folks in Texas have a special place in their hearts for the horned creature. “It’s got this cultural attachment in Texas,” says Nathan Rains, a biologist with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. “Everyone’s got an affinity for horny toads.”

Yep, the horny toad is well thought of in The Lonestar State. According to Texas Parks and Wildlife, “The Texas Horned Lizard was adopted as the Texas state reptile on June 18, 1993. The Texas Horned Lizard is also referred to as the horned toad, horny toad, and horned frog and with a lineage that can be traced back to the dinosaurs. It was put on the threatened species list in 1967 and is still on it today.” 

Once again, mankind is to blame for the decline of the Texas Horned Lizard, Widespread pesticide use and invasive fire ants, meanwhile, devastated the red harvester ant colonies that horned lizards depended on. By the 21st century, horny toads had all but disappeared from East and Central Texas.

Other causes for the little creature’s decline include the rapid growth of Texas cities that wiped away large swaths of habitat. Rangeland also changed as nonnative grasses like Bermuda grass, intended to feed livestock, created impenetrable thickets for the lizards, who live their lives an inch above the ground.

Over the years, efforts to save the horned lizard from becoming extinct have been underway. Recently, a coalition of TCU researchers, zoo, and wildlife scientists released 204 captive-raised hatchlings into the wild – 100 of them hatched at the Fort Worth Zoo. This followed new evidence this year that previously released lizards are now reproducing.

Hopefully, the efforts put forth by Texas Christian University, TPWD, and the San Antonio Zoo will help save the horny toad. More information about the State Reptile comes from Texas Highways magazine: “Slow and relatively docile, horned lizards rely on camouflage to keep out of trouble, though when cornered, they can squirt blood from their eyes to startle predators.”

And finally, for those interested in what happened to Daddy and his country living; his paradise came to an abrupt end one day when Momma stepped over a coiled-up rattlesnake who was sleeping by the back step. She was taking my little sister to the outhouse at the time. When Daddy got home from “Bernie’s” (the beer joint), she told him, “I am taking the kids and moving back to town, you can stay or go and I don’t care which!” He came along.