| scientific wormhole
Have you ever seen a toad the size of a football? The sea toad is the largest poisonous toad on Earth, growing up to more than 30 centimeters long. Hawaii and Puerto Rico in the United States have introduced sea toads to kill pests in sugar cane fields.
Since its introduction, the local sugarcane insect infestation has been greatly reduced. Their successful experience has led to a variety of countries, including Australia.
In Australia at that time, sugarcane growers were plagued by sugarcane grubs. This pest can damage the root system of sugarcane, seriously affecting the growth of crops.
In response to farmers' protests, Australia has set up organizations to address the sugarcane pest problem, but has been out of the question. It wasn't until 1935 that entomologists learned the methods of other countries and brought back a batch of sea toads from Hawaii.
What can surprise the Australian people is that the sea toad, which they thought was the "insecticidal savior", not only did not eliminate sugarcane pests after arriving in Australia, but instead flooded wildly, poisoning thousands of native animals.
The largest poisonous toad on the planet has flooded Australia
The sea toad is native to South and Central America, and although the name has the word "sea", it does not live in the sea, but mainly in open meadows and woodlands.
Sea toads, also known as South American giant frogs, are generally 15-18 cm long, and larger can have 30 cm; With an average weight of 1-3 kg, it is the largest toad on Earth.
Sea toads have been found to have the ability to remove sugarcane pests, so they are also called "sugarcane toads".
Australia took a fancy to its insecticidal ability and introduced it into the country, which unexpectedly led to serious consequences. When the sea toad arrives in Australia, it does not shine in the sugar cane field, but instead multiplies wildly and spreads everywhere.
Red is the distribution area of the sea toad in Australia
They can reproduce throughout the year, and after the second year, females can lay eggs, laying 30,000 eggs at a time, and the reproductive rate is extremely frightening. Moreover, they lack natural enemies in Australia, so they are even more unscrupulous in breeding.
Sea toads are at the foot of the northeast of Australia, then attack south and west, spreading to Queensland, Kimberley and other regions, and the number has grown rapidly to more than 1.5 billion.
The infestation of sea toads poses a great danger to local life. Many native animals have never seen this poisonous toad, thinking that it is an ordinary amphibian, and naturally lack vigilance, so they have suffered.
How poisonous are sea toads? Not only poisonous crocodiles can also eat snakes
Sea toads carry poison from an early age, including their eggs, and people have died from eating sea toad or toad egg soup. Grown sea toads are the most toxic, with a pair of coin-sized glands behind their eyes that can produce venom.
When threatened, the sea toad's venom glands secrete or spew out milky white venom, known as toad toxin. Toad toxin contains 14 different compounds, including toad toxin.
Toad toxeroptamine can affect the central nervous system and has hallucinogenic effects. As a result, not only small animals but also many larger animals die at their hands.
Sea toads eat insects, small rodents, and small toads and frogs, crowding out the living resources of native animals;
Kangaroos, crocodiles, monitor lizards, possums (possums) and other animals swallow sea toads, which is equivalent to eating a guillotine and dying within a few minutes.
Bag ferret
Since the sea toad invasion, Queensland's tasmanian shrew population has decreased by 95 per cent, and good native species are endangered by Hohod. The total number of round-nosed monitor lizards in the western region has also plummeted by 50%.
Previously, freshwater crocodile deaths were rarely seen in northern Australia; But since 2005, locals have witnessed the death of freshwater crocodiles. Surveys have shown that the spread of freshwater crocodile deaths coincides with the spread path of sea toads.
Usually, toads appear on the snake menu; But in Australia, several snakes are poisoned while attacking sea toads. Some snakes are even swallowed by sea toads.
At the same time, some of Australia's pet owners have collapsed – they have discovered that their dogs have become "fans" of sea toads. It turns out that after licking the sea toad, the dog will be affected by the toxin and will hallucinate, which will become addictive.
If you are only temporarily confused, you are not too worried, and the serious thing is that excessive intake can be fatal. Therefore, the local pet hospital had to add a "pet dog detoxification" program.
How to get rid of the threat of sea toads?
In order to control the growth of sea toads and protect native species, the Australian government has thought of many ways. For example, the release of carnivorous ants to eat young toads, the call on the public to catch sea toads and so on.
Australian scientists have tried to create viruses to restrain sea toads, but the microbes found can not only kill these poisonous toads, but also may harm other amphibians. So this direction is still being explored, and scientists have also used gene sequencing for this purpose.
People have also thought about poisoning young toads in the swamp, or using pheromones to lure sea toads into traps in groups, but these methods are ultimately not the cure.
Starting from the sea toad, scientists have come up with many methods, and whether it can play a radical role depends on the experiment. At the same time, scientists have thought about it and found a breakthrough point in native species.
They found that in areas where sea toads are infested, native animals have begun to learn to avoid sea toads or avoid areas that are too toxins in their bodies when eating sea toads.
Rick Shane of the University of Sydney, who was originally an expert on pythons, has been forced to become a "sea toad god".
He did a test, sprinkled small, intractable dead toads with a drug that caused vomiting, and fed them to the bag ferrets.
The results showed that the possum ferret was no longer interested in sea toads as long as they had been exposed to dead toads once.
The research team crushed the sea toad meat to make a toad sausage, added a small amount of medicine, and finally fed the sausage to the marsupial ferret and monitor lizard. The results were gratifying, with nearly half of the marsupials who had eaten toad sausages avoiding adult sea toads.
After that, the research team carried out a series of related training and trials. In late 2018, scientists also stocked a group of captive-reared juvenile toads upstream of the sea toad invasion direction.
Initial tests have shown that these juvenile toads are weakly toxic and not fatal, but can cause discomfort to the animals that prey on them. In this way, the animals react with disgust to the sea toad. This kind of training effect is better than poison sausage.
I have to say that the harm of alien species invasion is too terrible. It may have been introduced carelessly or with good intentions at first, but after the alien species flooded, it took countless human and financial resources to deal with it. Therefore, we must pay attention not to release animals at will, nor to smuggle exotic species into the country.
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