Australians Capture 'Monster' Toad the Size of Small Dog
With a body the size of a football and weighing nearly 2 pounds, the "monster toad" is among the largest specimens ever captured in Australia, according to Frogwatch coordinator Graeme Sawyer.
"It's huge, to put it mildly," he said. "The biggest toads are usually females, but this one was a rampant male ... I would hate to meet his big sister."
Cane toads, Bufo marinus, were imported from South America during the 1930s in a failed attempt to control beetles on Australia's northern sugar cane plantations.
The poisonous toads have proven fatal to Australia's delicate ecosystems, killing millions of native animals from snakes to the small crocodiles that eat them.
Killer Meat-Eating Frogs Terrorize San Francisco Robot Salamander Reveals How Fish First Crawled Ashore Central American Salamander's Tongue Packs Powerful Punch As part of its so-called "Toad Buster" project, Frogwatch conducts regular raids on local water holes, blinding the toads with bright lights then scooping them up by the dozen.
As part of its so-called "Toad Buster" project, Frogwatch conducts regular raids on local water holes, blinding the toads with bright lights then scooping them up by the dozen.
"We kill them with carbon dioxide gas, stockpile them in a big freezer and then put them through a liquid fertilizer process" that renders the toads nontoxic, Sawyer said.
"It turns out to be sensational fertilizer," he added.