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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. "

23 of 79 comments (clear)

  1. Hmm, what could cause this? by BandwidthHog · · Score: 3, Funny
    --

    Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
    1. Re:Hmm, what could cause this? by Jeremiah+Cornelius · · Score: 2, Funny
      At least it isn't raining exploding toads!

      Good thing for ABS.

      --
      "Flyin' in just a sweet place,
      Never been known to fail..."
  2. Sounds like... by SpaceLifeForm · · Score: 3, Funny
    ...a good name for a Rock band.

    --
    You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
  3. I want one of these dudes for christmas by FLAGGR · · Score: 3, Funny

    Imagine waking up christmas morning, and one of your presents jumps up into the air? That would rock. Everyone will want an exploding toad for christmas.

  4. The answer is obvious! by Eric+Smith · · Score: 2, Funny

    There must be a Scanner in the area practicing. If I lived near there, I think I'd move away quickly!

  5. Bah! by CommanderData · · Score: 4, Funny

    Exploding Toads? Back in my day we had Exploding Whales. Well OK, it was only one whale, and they used a half-ton of dynamite, but it was still very impressive!

    --
    Urge to post... fading... fading... RISING!... fading... fading... gone.
    1. Re:Bah! by jericho4.0 · · Score: 2, Informative

      Well, this might make you happy; Two exploding whales

      --
      "A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
  6. Exploding German Frogs by cc-rider-Texas · · Score: 3, Funny

    In other news, hordes of Frenchmen we seen heading to the border with a knife and fork in each hand!

    --
    If you give a liberal an enema, he'll turn transparent.
  7. Now to blame this on global warming by QuantumG · · Score: 4, Funny

    or as the hip kids say these days "climate change". Either that or we have to go find a relevant passage in the bible (preferably the book of revelations) or some random drawl that nostradamus pumped out.

    --
    How we know is more important than what we know.
    1. Re:Now to blame this on global warming by ziekke · · Score: 3, Informative
      Climate Change is not the same as Global Warming .

      They are different theories attempting to explain the same problem.

      And to stay on topic... ew!

      --
      // Ziekke
  8. Toads / frogs can't burp. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:Toads / frogs can't burp. by ebingo · · Score: 2, Interesting

      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...

  9. Where's the video? by MDMurphy · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I was hoping one of news services would have video. It would be best if there was one illustrating the suicide maneuver, startling a crow diving in for attack.

    I like the theory of suicide, with one generation protecting the the future generations as all crows will from now on be scared off.

    What we're really going to find is kids have been feeding them PopRocks at night.

    1. Re:Where's the video? by apocamok · · Score: 3, Informative

      Not exactly video, but some pictures here:

      By the way, the toads has started exploding at the Danish city of Låsby too, as reported by Danish newspaper Ekstra Bladet (in Danish, sorry)

  10. Conversion factors and significant digits by psetzer · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Yanno, mentioning that the guts were propelled 3.2 feet into the air sounds kinda like someone had nothing better to do than to measure the size of the splats with more precision than most people would consider sane. Now, I've had my suspicions about the Germans, but this is worse than anything I've previously read.

    --
    "Anyone who attempts to generate random numbers by deterministic means is living in a state of sin." -- John von Neumann
    1. Re:Conversion factors and significant digits by KinkifyTheNation · · Score: 2, Informative

      Well, 3.2 feet = 1 meter.

      They were just converting it, I don't think they actually closely measured the maximum distance.

  11. A good way to go... by RootsLINUX · · Score: 3, Funny

    Wow. Screw cremation. Screw being burried. This is how I want to go. Just tie my carcass to a medium sized rocket full of explosvies, fire me up, and boom. I think that's a good way for people to remember me by.

    --
    Hero of Allacrost, a FOSS RPG for *NIX/*BSD/OS X/Win
  12. Too bad by Bodhidharma · · Score: 2, Interesting

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

    --
    A dyslexic man walks into a bra.
  13. Documentary by fishmasta · · Score: 4, Informative

    You're probably refering to the Austrailian documentary Cane Toads.

    http://imdb.com/title/tt0130529/

  14. Well, they are german after all by iendedi · · Score: 2, Interesting
    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...
    --

    It is your personal duty to fight for what is right on a daily basis. Ignoring injustice is identical to approving
  15. The Resurrection by Bootle · · Score: 2, Funny
    "You're gonna do toad?"

    "Yeah. What's the big deal?"

    "Lemme tell ya bout it, stud!"

  16. Cane Toads by Detritus · · Score: 3, Interesting

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

    --
    Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
  17. Toads also exloding in Denmark by Maskedman · · Score: 3, Informative

    It's actually also happening in Denmark now.

    In a small town in western Denmark called Laasby, the toads are also exploding. Another weird thing is, that it often occurs between 2 and 3 in the night.