Fear of frogs

Fear of frogs and toads is both a specific phobia and a superstition found in the folkways of many cultures. As a phobia it is known simply as frog phobia or ranidaphobia, a name drawn from Ranidae, the most widespread family of frogs. Psychiatric literature generally just says fear of frogs, and the term batrachophobia, meaning fear of amphibians, was recorded in a psychiatric dictionary in 1953. The phobia often begins after the person sees frogs die violently, and one severe case reported in the Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry in 1983 followed a woman's lawn mower running over a group of frogs. As a folk belief, some cultures treat the sight of a frog as a bad omen and others as a good one, and a common myth holds that touching a frog or toad gives warts.