Lord Ryan

[Lord_Simeon]

Hello to my nephew lord ryan.
Just registered at the playground.

Another fellow aussie on the playground.
We'll outnumber you soon.....

[Inkswitch]

G'day:)

[HortonsWho]

A little like when rabbits first appeared in Australia... nobody thought it was a problem THEN... :p

[CruX]

'lo Lord! Happy Fraggin':D

Yeah Horton, but I doubt the natives had shock rifles to cull the population. :evil:

[Idle Idol]

howdy m8

[SoBeiT]

Welcome Lord Ryan..stop in and say Hello :)

[ShirleyFT]

Hi, Lord. Welcome.

[Lord_Simeon]

RE:Rabbits

We had a "government chemical test" called the Calice virus.
They tested it on an island to see if it killed all the rabbits, and it worked very well.
Subsequently, the virus escaped to the mainland.......
Accident??? or on purpose???

So theres not too many rabbits left.
Funny story from the news at the time.

All the rabbit hunters were really pissed off, so one of them rang a local news station and announced that since they had killed his livelihood, he released 5 cane toads in the murray river.

And we all know what cane toads do!!!

[SoBeiT]

I don't, what do they do?

[SK TastesLike KFC]

This oughta do it!



The Unwanted Amphibian

Up until 1935, Australia did not have any toad species of it's own. We had tree frogs and ground burrowing frogs - even microhylid frogs which do not have a tadpole - but none of the world's hundreds of toad species evolved here. However, not wanting to be left out, Australia acquired some - 102 toads, in fact.

These toads were supposedly being used successfully in the Carribbean islands and in Hawaii to combat the cane beetle, a pest of sugar cane crops. After rave reviews from overseas, Hawaii shipped a box of toads to Gordonvale, just south of Cairns. These were held in captivity for awhile and then they were released into the sugar cane fields of the tropic north. It was later discovered that the toads (scientific name Bufo marinus) can't jump very high (only about 30cm) so they did not eat the cane beetles which stayed up on the upper stalks of the cane plants. At the time of year when the beetle's larvae were emerging from the ground, no toads were about. So the cane toad, as it came to be known, had no impact on the cane beetles at all and farmers had to go back to the use of chemicals to kill the beetle.

Meanwhile, the 'cat was out of the bag' or, more accurately, the toads were out of the box! But there were only 102 of them so nobody gave any thought to catching them up again and disposing of them. The toads were on their own and they proved to be very hardy survivors. They turned out to be a lot more than we bargained for and it didn't take long to find out how well the toads would do in their new Australian home.

They breed like flies, as the saying goes. Each pair of cane toads can lay 20,000 per breeding season (some published references estimate they produce as much as 60,000 eggs!).
Their 'toadpoles' develop faster than many Australian frogs so they can outcompete our frogs for food.
Toads and toadpoles seem to be resistant to some herbicides and eutrophic water which would normally kill frogs and tadpoles.
All stages of a toad's life are poisonous so they have no natural predators to keep their numbers in check.
Toads not only eat the food normally available to Australian frogs, there is growing anecdotal evidence that they eat frogs as well, especially metamorphs.
Fish who eat toadpoles die. Animals who eat young toads and adults die. The museums have plenty of snakes preserved in jars which were killed by toad toxin so fast, the toad is still in their mouths unswallowed. Even small amounts of water which toadpoles have gotten into, such as a pet's water dish, can be poisoned by toadpoles. When the pet comes along to drink from it's dish, it becomes sick. Local vets report that a couple dogs a month are brought in ill just from mouthing toads.

Here's a riddle: what happens if you feed a cane toad too much?
Answer: it just keeps getting bigger!
Captive cane toads will eat everything from dog food to mice and they keep growing until they reach 25cm in length and over 2 kilos. In recent years, it has been noticed that toads in the Cairns area are much smaller than they used to be (the "big mama" at right was found in Babinda - 30 minutes south of Cairns). A theory is that when toads first colonise a new territory, there is abundant food supply. The toads gorge themselves and get quite large. As the numbers of toads increase, the food resource never reaches its pre-toad levels and therefore, the toads' size and their food supply acheive a "compromise".

Cane toads have proven themselves to be one of Australia's worst environmental disasters. Since 1935, they have spread across most of Queensland, they are over the border into the Northern Territory and they have now reached the world-reknowned wetlands of Kakadu. Their numbers are staggering in the dry southeast Queensland area and they are spreading down the NSW coast. Quite a few have hitched a ride down to Sydney in vegetable trucks and they have established themselves at the 2000 Olympics site (at Homebush Bay in Sydney's inner western suburbs). This area of Sydney is also the largest remaining NSW stronghold for the endangered Green and Golden Bell frog (Litoria aurea). One thing this endangered frog definitely does not need is another threat.

Toads are responsible for the reduction of many species of Australian wildlife although 'nature finds a way' eventually. Some bird species have somehow learned how to eat cane toads without exposing themselves to the toxin. They kill the toad and turn it over onto its back. They pull away the soft belly skin and partake of the internal organs, leaving the skin and the deadly paratoid glands behind.

There is also an Australian snake species called the Keelback or Freshwater snake (Tropidonophis mairi) which is somehow immune to the toad's toxin. Keelbacks swallow and digest entire toads without any ill effect at all. Surely there is important information to be gained from an intense study of the Keelback snake's biology.


eewwwww.


SKTLKFC:moon:



<for Horton> i did not write this.

[HortonsWho]

Originally posted by SK TastesLike KFC

<for Horton> i did not write this.


:D

[Lord_Simeon]

I have seen a documentary on cane toads.

They had it all, from running them over in Combi-vans, to hitting them with 9 irons.

But the freakiest thing was a couple of hippies boiling them up and drinking the juice ala Magic Mushrooms....

Apparently the "Toxin" is striknen"(hope i spelt that right), which is the same in M-M and produces the "HIGH"

Now THATS DISGUSTING.

[SoBeiT]

thats answered the question on toads..thanks KFC & Spargo-64.
Wouldn't it be something if Nature is developing a new species of creature to wipe us out? :evil:

[lord_ryan]

just like to say hello people
looking forward to talking with you all:)

LR

[Lord_Simeon]

dude!!

[lord_ryan]

i was just wondering, do you people always talk about frogs and rabits:confused:

[Idle Idol]

we only talk about frogs and rabbits during extreme fits of paranoid, dellusional, drug induced hazes caused by ludicrous amounts of vodka and dank.

--Idle, yes...all the time

[lord_ryan]

lol sounds good:D
LR

[HortonsWho]

You must be running the Aussie version of the OS--- mostly rabbits and toads... the occasional roo...


anything else that hops....

[lord_ryan]

not so much the rabbits and anymore... mostly flies

[Lord_Simeon]

ahh....roos......he he

Oh, this is the OS that we run is australia
Windaz (http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~darwin/windows.htm)

[Lord_Simeon]

Right...thats it.

(Cue god save the queen)
:D

[CruX]

LMAO Spargo.
Can I get a copy or will it run upside-down on my monitor??:D

[Lord_Simeon]

LOL.....

[Airlea]

Well you know, Japan had Godzilla, New york had the Staypuff Marshmallow Man in a Ghostbuster movie; once those frogs get to be about 15 stories high, you can tell people you were there for when they were small and pesky. *nods*

:loopy:

[Lord_Simeon]

According to the news, their about to clone the Tazmanian tiger
from DNA (it's extinct)

NOW THATS A MONSTER.

[tr@xtandn]

Oh you Aussies, always good for a laugh or two:D just kidding welcome to the forums:p