Animals

The Sonoran Desert toad can alter your mind — it’s not the only animal

Psychedelic and other potentially mind-bending compounds show up on land and by sea

An image of a rainbow tie dye background with two frogs, ants, fish and coral overlays.

Some of the compounds made by these animals remain largely mysterious.

BACKGROUND: PREMYUDA YOSPIM/ISTOCK/GETTY IMAGES PLUS; ANIMALS, FROM LEFT: SMITHSONIAN TROPICAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE; © BEASTMASTER/INATURALIST (CC BY-NC 4.0); HOLGER KRISP/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS (CC BY 3.0); © MATT REALA/INATURALIST (CC BY-NC 4.0); BRIAN GRATWICKE/FLICKR (CC BY 2.0)

By Deborah Balthazar

The adage “all attention is good attention” may be true for marketers — not so for the Sonoran Desert toad. Last fall, the U.S.