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Toxic Toads Taking Over Australia

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the bad-sci-fi-movie-ideas dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Yahoo News is reporting that toxic toads imported from Hawaii to help control the beetle population that was ravaging Australia's sugar cane crops have instead become pests themselves. From the article: 'The toads can grow as large as dinner plates and weigh up to 4.5 pounds. Their heads and backsides are studded with rows of warts that secrete a milky white toxin called bufotoxin. Because Australia has no native toads, many native predators such as snakes, lizards and mammals are very sensitive to the toxin. So when the toads spread, they immediately kill off many of the region's top predators.'"

2 of 564 comments (clear)

  1. Real story is the Ravens by Alcimedes · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Last I'd heard nothing was eating these toads.

    Nothing that is except a small population of Ravens that learned that if you flip the toads over, the bellys have no poison. As soon as one figured this out, others started to copy the behavior. Now ravens are disembowling these toads all over the place.

    Now that is cool.

  2. Re:Evolution? by krayzkrok · · Score: 5, Interesting
    That is actually a highly relevant point. We do know that toads on the vanguard are significantly larger than those in established populations, and it may have nothing to do with evolution but rather a lot to do with population dynamics.

    The toads to first colonise an area will of course be the fittest, fastest toads; these are individuals that have eaten the most, grown the best, and able to move longer distances more quickly in search of new feeding areas. The motivation to move comes from competition in existing areas, and an abundance of "resources" (ie. food, space) in uncolonised areas. Less fit competitors take longer to move into new feeding areas because they are less able to do so. As far as the toads in the "older" established populations in Queensland go, they reached carrying capacity in the environment decades ago so there are no new areas to colonise, no abudant resources to lead to monsterous toads, and generally a much smaller average size given their short generation time.

    I have not read Ben's paper yet so I'm not sure whether the claims of evolution are simply media spin, but I know enough about toad population dynamics (I research toad impacts on native species) to question the assumptions made in TFA. Without knowing more about the research, the conclusions seem to be explainable through standard population models.