'Monster' {cane} toad found in Australia (Reuters/CNN)

[eppur_se_muova]

SYDNEY, Australia (Reuters) -- A huge cane toad the size of a small dog has been captured in the Australian tropical city of Darwin, startling environmentalists who are fighting to stop the poisonous reptiles from spread across the country.

"It's a monster toad," said Paul Cowdy from FrogWatch which captured the cane toad on Monday night.

"We've never seen a cane toad this big," he said on Tuesday. "It's a male and normally females are bigger."

The cane toad, regarded as a major pest in Australia, was one of 39 caught by a group from FrogWatch near Lee Point in Darwin. It measures 20.5 centimeters (8 inches) in length and weighs 840 grams (1.8 pounds) -- twice the normal weight.

Cane toads are one of Australia's worst environmental mistakes. The spread of the toads, whose skin is poisonous, has led to dramatic declines in populations of native snakes, goanna lizards and quolls, which are cat-sized marsupials.


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more: http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/03/27/australia.toad.reut/index.html

[Warpy]

1. Typical CNN

The skin isn't poisonous, the glands right behind the eyes are. Those toads can direct a spray of poison at predators. When small animals try to eat the toads, they're poisoned by it. Australian hippie types dry it and smoke it for an hallucinatory buzz.

If any of you ever see the VHS "Cane Toads," please watch it. It's Animal Planet meets Monty Python, both horrifying and hilarious at the same time.

The real irony is that the damned toads didn't even control the agricultural pest they were imported to control.

[NickB79]

5. Not only that, but they called it a reptile

Frog/toad = amphibian.

[shain from kane]

6. I have that videotape. It would take a trailer truck to deal with this specimen.

(I don't want to spoil it for others, but one of the memorable scenes shows drivers dealing with migratory cane toads.)

[havocmom]

2. Have seen Sonoran Desert toads (Or Colorado river toads if you perfer) that big

walked past on at night and thought: hmm, that rabbit didn't move when we (me 'n the dog) by. Went back to look and that sucker was FRIGGIN HUGH!!!111! I'm series!!1!

Really thought the old boy was a full grown cotton-tail! Many around almost that big. Figure they get a good ration of bugs!

[sinkingfeeling]

3. One of my Samoyed dogs was killed by a Colorado River Toad in Tucson, AZ in 1986. It was

the second time she had mouthed one. The first time, she went into convulsions and I rushed her to an all night vet clinic. They were able to save her. The second time, was the night before our move to Rochester, MN and my son and I were staying in a motel. We found her dead the next morning (the day we were to fly out) and the local vet determined the toad had killed her.

[Bobbieo]

4. I had a dog that survived two attacks on the Buffas in Tucson. in the '50s.

She actually froze with one leg raised. We washed her mouth out with water and she gradually came back. Some of those toads were a foot in diameter. They came out during the monsoon season. Nasty looking things - slimy greenish, brown.

They call them Colorado River Toads but after 26 years in Yuma on the Colorado. I have never seen one here.

[depakid]

7. Capture them- freeze them and turn them into liquid fertilizer

LOL.

The only times I've ever tried to hit animals with a car has been on tracks in North Queensland and Cape York. These things are plentiful- rather disgusting and insidious.

Also: NON CNN LINKS:

http://news.google.com/nwshp?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&tab=wn&q=cane%20toad