Odds and ends for December 25

Subscribe Now Choose a package that suits your preferences.
Start Free Account Get access to 7 premium stories every month for FREE!
Already a Subscriber? Current print subscriber? Activate your complimentary Digital account.

Toad stowaway receives new home

Toad stowaway receives new home

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — They say cats have nine lives. Now a Chinese toad has joined that club of wily survivors.

South Africans are marveling at the endurance of a toad that got trapped in a cargo shipment from China to Cape Town after jumping into a porcelain candlestick that was made there.

South African officials reportedly planned to put down the creature, fearing it would cause harm as an invasive species if it were let go in the wild.

But the toad got a last-minute reprieve. Mango Airlines, a South African airline, transported the toad on Friday to Johannesburg for delivery to an animal sanctuary after officials decided to find a way to let the globe-trotting toad live.

The two-hour flight was a breeze compared to the trip from China, an odyssey of many weeks and thousands of miles across the Indian Ocean.