Exploding Toads

Badly Configured writes "The city of Hamburg in Germany is plagued by exploding amphibians (The Times, BBC, press release from the city, in German). People are warned not to go near the unstable animals for the fear of being hit. Experts have tested the toads for bacteria and chemicals, yet the reason for the animals going off remains a mystery..." From the article: "The toads' entrails are propelled for up to a metre (3.2ft), in scenes that have been likened to science fiction. Scientists are baffled. Possible explanations include a unknown virus or a fungus in the pond. "

Comments

Toads / frogs can't burp.

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember a long time ago seeing a rather disgusting documentary about regular plague-level swarms of animals, including frogs. At the breeding time of the year, they would swarm over the roads and part of a town in their urge to find spawning grounds. And then there was this guy who was paid to run over frogs in his car to try and reduce the number of frogs that invaded the town. Anyway, that's irrelevent background information.

The point that I remember that's appropriate: frogs can't burp. So they would explode if this guy ran them over from the back-first (rather then head-first, where their guts were squeezed out of their backside). So what's probably happening here is:

(1) The toads eat something nasty.
(2) The nasty thing releases *a lot* of gas as it's digested.
(3) The toad can't burp - and for some reason can't fart either - so it swells up and eventually explodes.

Anyway, that's my best guess based on the information in those articles: something foreign (but not necessarily toxic) has got into their food supply.

Re:Toads / frogs can't burp.

[ebingo]

That explains all: A few years ago, while parking my car, I rolled over a "bump". Once parked, I went to see what it was, and I actually ran over a frog back-first. All of it's guts were far in front of it, as if, exactly, it had exploded. That was funny but disgusting. The following morning, it was gone. Looks like some animal had a feast...

Too bad

[Bodhidharma]

Charles Forte didn't live to see this. He would have loved it.

Well, they are german after all

[iendedi]

Experts have tested the toads for bacteria and chemicals, yet the reason for the animals going off remains a mystery...

Meanwhile, behind the bushes, two german university students power up their focused microwave beam generator, waiting for the experts to get in position to measure the unknown phenomena...

Cane Toads

[Detritus]

If were lucky, they can isolate the disease and use it to infect the cane toads in Australia. Exploding poisonous toads!