Exploding toads baffle German experts

BERLIN (AFP) - Hundreds of toads have met a bizarre and sinister end in Germany in recent days, it was reported: they exploded.

According to reports from animal welfare workers and veterinarians as many as a thousand of the amphibians have perished after their bodies swelled to bursting point and their entrails were propelled for up to a metre (three feet).

It is like "a science fiction film", according to Werner Smolnik of a nature protection society in the northern city of Hamburg, where the phenomenon of the exploding toad has been observed.

"You see the animals crawling on the ground, swelling and then exploding."

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1517&ncid=732&e=5&u=/afp/20050423/od_afp/germanytoadsoffbeat

I don't know whether to laugh or feel sorry for the frogs. So I'll do both! :rofl: :cry:

May be having a second childhood

Yeccchhh. I do wonder what's behind this, though....

On edit: Go to this site:

http://www.anomalies-unlimited.com/Science/Betty.html

This is a page dedicated to Betty, the tool-making crow. I saw Betty on Animal Planet a couple of times, and it's a very good demonstration of how other species can problem-solve through the construction and use of a tool. What I'm getting at here is that the idea of crows literally scaring the toads to death may not be so far-fetched.

If a crow can learn how to fashion a piece of wire into a hook to grab a bucket of food at the end of a tube and lift it out, surely one or more could learn how to get their food cheap and easy by scaring the toads so badly they expode, and then picking over the fresh remains. This brings into question whether crows can truly be called scavengers, since doing this would be a form of hunting.

I'm assuming here these toads can threat-disply (by puffing out) to the point that their bodies cannot handle the pressure, and the crows are dive-bombing them or something like and the toads swell until they burst in response. Poor toads....

If this is what's going on, it's fairly impressive that so many crows are involved (it would be many crows, given the sheer number of dead toads), as that implies learning from observing other crows. Betty, the tool-maker mentioned at the link, only bears out the whole idea.

Fascinating, if true.

that is one of the weirdest idea's i have read this month.

:yourock:


on edit: i wonder if this could be a pesticide issue where chemicals found on the insects that toads eat are reacting with the toads gastric juices?

The Germans are working on a new weapon. They will infiltrate the enemy lines with innocuous looking toads that will then swell up and explode, wreaking havoc within the ranks and leaving the decimated remnants open to a full scale attack.

Diabolically clever.

hummm I wonder if the new pope has anything to do with this?

Pop Rocks, they got them from Mikey.