A BBC article raised a couple questions in my mind about cane toads.
Australia MP targets toxic toads
The implication is that not only did the toads become an ecological menace, but they were unsuccessful at their intended task. Is this true, or did they have a significant impact on the cane beetles?
Is there an odd species of carnivorous kangaroo, or are there other reasons kangaroos would be eating toad skins?
Perhaps this site will help.
" It was later discovered that the toads (scientific name Bufo marinus) can’t jump very high 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."
from http://www.fdrproject.org/pages/toads.htm
However nature fights back
" Some Queensland bird and rodent 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. This behaviour has only taken a mere 60 years to learn - very fast on the evolutionary scales."
Thanks for the feedback on the cane toad’s poor performance.
But what’s the deal on killing kangaroos? I couldn’t find any reference to that at the sites above, and when I punched “cane toad kangaroo” into Google, all I got were lots of sites selling cane toad coin purses and kangaroo scrotum pouches.
Isn’t that redundant?
Band name, anyone??
Maybe they are pouches designed to hold multiple kangaroo scrotums (scroti?), would that be allowable gramatically?
I’m not quite sure. The article says “kangaroos have died after eating their highly toxic skins” but doesn’t elaborate. I can think of a few possibilities.
One is that the roos were chewing on the skin of a dead toad. Like most grazing animals roos are occasional carnivores and will scavenge a bit of dead material or insects as a dietary supplement, particularly in desperation.
Another is that the kangaroos have drunk from water that has been contaminated by toad venom. Dogs and cats occasionally get mild poisoning this way. Toads will bathe in any standing water to rehydrate themselves and if disturbed their skin secretes toxin, which then goes into the water.
The third possibility is that they are referring to rat kangaroos, these little critters are relatively omnivorous and probably wouldn’t be averse to eating a small toad.