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 (2 kilos).

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.’

From the 1940s through the ‘60s, the toads were invading at a rate of about 6 miles (10km) per year; now they’re taking over at a rate of about 30 miles (50km) a year.

To find out why the toads are spreading so fast, researchers stationed themselves about 40 miles (64km) east of Australia’s port city of Darwin, in a region where the cane toads had not yet spread.

When the toads arrived, the researchers found that those in the vanguard of the invasion had legs that were up to 6 percent longer than average; shorter-legged stragglers followed. The study showed that newer populations of toads tended to have longer legs than those in long-established populations.

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