The cane toad (Bufo marinus), also known as the giant neotropical toad or marine toad, is a large, terrestrial true toad which is native to Central and South
America, but has been introduced to various islands throughout Oceania and the Caribbean.
It is a member of the subgenus Rhinella of the genus Bufo, which includes many different true toad species found throughout Central and South America. The cane toad is a prolific breeder; females lay single-clump spawns with thousands of eggs.
Its reproductive success is partly because of opportunistic feeding: it has a diet, unusual among anurans, of both dead and living matter. Adults average 10–15 cm (3.9–5.9 in) in length; the largest recorded specimen weighed 2.65 kg (5.8 lb) with a length of 38 cm (15 in) from snout to vent.
Originally, cane toads were used to eradicate pests from sugar cane, giving rise to their common name. The cane toad has many other common names, including "giant toad" and "marine toad"; the former refers to its size and the latter to the binomial name, Bufo marinus. It was one of many species described by Linnaeus in his 18th-century work Systema Naturae (1735).
Linnaeus based the specific epithet marinus on an illustration by Dutch zoologist Albertus Seba, who mistakenly believed the cane toad to inhabit both terrestrial and marine environments. Other common names include "giant neotropical toad", "Dominican toad", "giant marine toad", and "South American Cane Toad". In Trinidadian English, they are commonly called crapaud, the French word for toad.