Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Toadzilla

Ladies and gentlemen, please forgive me for interrupting your busy day, but there is an important problem I think we need to address: toad obesity. It is a sensitive subject but I think we all know who we're talking about here:

giant freaking cane toad!
Source: BBC NewsRound

Yes that's right, several of you have sent in notes about the horror that is Toadzilla (their name, not mine), a cane toad the size of a small dog, recently discovered in Australia. Weighing in at around 2 lbs (861g), Toadzilla is the largest cane toad ever found in Australia's Northwest Territory. Thankfully, volunteers from the Kimberly Toadbusters group have already stepped in to offer their assistance as personal trainers:

huge cane toad
Source: The West Australian

Someone needs to get these invasive beasts on the South Beach diet, stat!

(Many more ISW posts about cane toads can be found here.)

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think I'm noticing growth in the number of frogs last couple of years here in Mass. Last year seemed full of them, all summer long. Anecdotal, but noticable. Is that inline with the region, do you know?

Jennifer Forman Orth said...

Funny that you say that, because the first year I lived in Framingham my yard was full of them, and in the three years since then I've seen but one here.

For less anecdotal information, check out the Frogwatch page for Massachusetts, from the National Wildlife Federation.

Jim Rosenberg said...

Could this be from massive amounts of urinary Viagra residue seeping into the watershed? I want co-credit.

Jennifer Forman Orth said...

Hmm Jim, I think you are getting confused between Viagra and estrogen...or maybe there is something you want to tell all of us?

Anonymous said...

Hmm...should be careful with those things...They're quite poisonous...I lived in Hawaii for a number of years and saw them all over the damn place. They've killed off quite a few animals, both wild and domestic.