Toadstone (Paperback)

High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles The toadstone (not unlike the batrachite), also known as bufonite, is a mythical stone or gem thought to be found in, or produced by, a toad, and is supposed to be an antidote to poison. Artifacts called "toadstones" were actually the fossilized teeth of Lepidotes, an extinct genus of ray-finned fish from the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, as they appeared to be "stones that are perfect in form." At some point, humans began to associate the fossils with jewels that some believed to form in the heads of toads due to supernatural causes, and appeared in recorded history originally during the lifetime of Pliny the Elder, who was born in 23 AD and died in 79.