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Ecce Bufo: The Toad in Nature and in Olmec Iconography


Web link: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.10...

Pages: 273 - 290

Abstract

My own researches have convinced me that the typical attributes of the so-called were-jaguar are not, in fact, biologically impossible but are clear and diagnostic attributes of the toad. The cleft brow, for example, which Coe associated with the furrow in the crown of some mature male jaguars, is a clear and ever present feature in all members of the genus Bufo. In fact, in Bufo marinus, the giant toad of the Gulf Coast area, this cleft brow or intraorbital depression is further accentuated by the cranial crests which communicate with the powerful venom-secreting paratoid glands. And these cranial supraorbital crests in B. marinus bear an uncanny resemblance to the Olmec flame brow.