Don't they squirt blood from their eyes when you pick them up?
Happycamper: Yes, they do have the ability squirt some nocuous fluid from somewhere around their eyes. A distasteful repellent of some kind and I think a last resort deal if they're really getting thrashed. Never had one cut loose on us during chase and capture endeavors.
Locally some of our larger lizards will make a grab if they think they can swallow a horny toad. When seized the toad will inflate its body in an attempt to become too large to handle. If they escape or feel threatened, they'll also tip toward one side or the other displaying their greatest dimension and the camo patterns on their back.
They are neat little critters, but fading to things like cheatgrass or medusahead invasions that put a dense carpet of stems on the ground. With their wide bodies they can't run through dense stands of grass. In this region they're mostly in sagebrush/bunchgrass stands that have a lot barren interspaces between tussocks and shrubs.
Dryfly24: Yes, your version is a different cat, and we have those east of Oregon's Steens Mts in the Alvord basin. Not seen any east of there, but I'd guess there should be some in the Owyhee drainage. As to diet, I think they'll do anything that will fit in their mouth. I remember watching one my kid kept shoving down amazingly large grass hoppers For a brief span he kept one indoors in a tank with a screened lid on top. It would nail hoppers, spiders, and even catch house flies. They have a sticky tongue like frogs they can flip out help nail quick moving bugs. Fun to watch when the vision locks on to a bug. They'd crawl in close and then its tail would start twitching as it prepped for a forward leap. The tongue would flip out and even the flies rarely escaped.
I too believe they are a protected species and difficult to feed year round if kept indoors. Our kid once summered one in a screened in outdoor pen where insects had ready access. He then put in a bucket of sand and it overwintered (hibernated) in our root cellar. Got it going again next spring and released it back in its original haunts.
I think it was Murphy, Idaho that used to have an annual toad race as a reason to come to town and help fund the local fire guys. Put the toads under cover in the center of a circle and lift the lid. First to the perimeter was the winner. In our feel good era though, I suspect it's a lost event.
Have a good one,
