DARWIN, Australia - An environmental group said Tuesday it had captured a "monster" toad the size of a small dog.
With a body the size of a football and weighing nearly 2 pounds, the 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."
Frogwatch, which is dedicated to wiping out a toxic toad species that has killed countless Australian animals, picked up the 15-inch-long cane toad during a raid on a pond outside the northern city of Darwin late Monday.
Cane toads 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.
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.
Wow, I sure am glad I didn't read this a few years ago. While in the Caribbean there were frogs this size and bigger in the yard every night. Several times we found them still in the swimming pool the next morning. Wouldn't have found it as funny and interesting if I had been worried about them eating one of the kids (all were from 2-5 years old at the time, so not much bigger than a lot of dogs LOL)
ok this truck driver is driving ona long lonely road with the next town 100 mles away he needs to take a dump really bad so finally when he cant wait no more he pulls over jumps down from his truck runs over to a bush and takes a big dump suddenly he relizes he has no tolit paper so he feels around on the ground grabs the first thing he finds wipes his butt and go back to his truck he gets about 5 miles down the road and thinks wow what was that i used to wipe with that was the softest thing i ever felt that was better than charmen, it gets to him wondering about it so he turns around goes back to where he was takes a flashlight finds his pile of doo and sitting right next to it is a frog wiping his eyes saying ribit ribit
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With a body the size of a football and weighing nearly 2 pounds, the 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."
Frogwatch, which is dedicated to wiping out a toxic toad species that has killed countless Australian animals, picked up the 15-inch-long cane toad during a raid on a pond outside the northern city of Darwin late Monday.
Cane toads 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.
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.