Cane toad or native frog

[barocca]

here in australia the battle against the cane toad menace continues unabated,
if not stopped they will spread throughout australia and are already a serious threat to our native frogs,

daily our front line troops (you, me, the bloke next door - anyone interested in protecting the bio-diversity of our great southern land) kill hundreds and thousands of these amphibian invaders,

but sometimes in the dark, where the fight is thickest, the lines between friend and foe become blurred....


Study the picture below carefully, when you are confident you can distinguish a cane toad on sight continue to the Friend or Foe test

Here we have an identification pic of our foe


and here we have a Friend or Foe recognition test
Friend or Foe??

How did you do?
B.

[Togakure]

Picked the Cane Toad first off. Almost picked the Painted Burrowing Frog, but it looked moist and the description said the Cane Toad had dry skin.

I hadn't heard about this problem. Interesting. I'll go back now and read more. I'm curious as to how the Cane Toad was introduced, and why it is proliferating so rampantly.

[dessa14]

i can instantly recognise a cane toad, ive hit enough with golf clubs to know the difference.
thanks,
dessa

[Beirut]

Wasn't it Bart Simpson who brought that frog to Australia in the first place?

[dessa14]

barocca the amount of cane toads around has dropped significantly since about 5 years ago
thanks,
dessa

[barocca]

i think so too,
i dont think they adapted well to the long drought we have had,

the recent extreme rains down here in bris may see a resurgence in their numbers,

sadly i am about to move house - i currently live on a flood plain and we suffered in the last big rains,
so we are moving onto a hilltop and there will not be so many of the little darlings taking up space in my freezer anymore


as Dessa pointed out numbers have declined in the last five years around SEQ,
(due i believe to better vigilance and the drought)
How i wish i had a digital camera about 6 years ago, there were a number of roads around here that were carpeted with Cane Toads after any half decent rains,
sadly due to the poison glands on the top skin of the toad many a native bird and reptile has died while eating a Cane Toad.

Some bird species have learnt to tip them on their back and attack their soft underbelly, but thats not possible for snakes, whose numbers around here began dropping rapidly in the late 70's. (when i moved here)
It is now unheard of to find Carpet Pythons or any large snake species around abouts.
Frilled lizards, Dragon lizards and even Blue Tongue lizards are also now extremely rare, Scrub Turkey's did not adapt and are gone from these parts alltogether.

[Adrian II]

Um Barocca, in your freezer?
Don't tell me Ozzies celebrate with a Thanksgiving Frog?

[dessa14]

umm barroca i live on property and i see 9 foot carpets all the time, and heaps of scrub turkeys as well the occasional blue tongue.
thanks,
dessa

[barocca]

umm barroca i live on property and i see 9 foot carpets all the time, and heaps of scrub turkeys as well the occasional blue tongue.
thanks,
dessa

i live in brisbane, north of carindale,
i see plenty of cane toads, very few tree frogs and no large snakes, large lizards or scrub turkeys anymore,

we are adjacent to 2 bushland reserves,
minnippi starts behind me and goes 3 Klicks to the east and 1.5 Klicks north,
seven hills starts 1/2 klick to the west of us and goes for about 2k's west and north,
when i came here 9 years ago large snakes, lizards and turkey's were very common and toads were not.

We had BlueTongue, Bearded and Beardless dragons coming down from the reserves every spring and lounging around my gardens until late autumn, Big One's - the kind Cats dare not bother or the Cat is dinner; and Turkeys all year round.
I was constantly moving snakes from my house back into the reserve.
(most of em are not poisonous and those that are tend to be rather timid around people - give em a box to hide in and they will get in it - easy to move then)
Now we have nothing.
The last python i saw was 2 years ago, and even he was small. (he would have been hard pressed to subdue a marsupial mouse - a domestic mouse would have beaten the tar out of him)
and thats another thing, the Marsupial mice are gone too!
B.