In Australia, there is a flood of sugarcane toads, and rabbits, foxes, cats and dogs, belong to the representative of the invasion of alien species, according to the Australian government statistics, as of 2019, Australia's sugarcane toads have spread throughout the East Coast and the northern region, the number has exceeded 200 million, has seriously affected the environment and ecology, Australians hate it.
Especially during the breeding period, male sugarcane toads are fearless, in order to compete for female toads, they will fight wildly, and finally only one can successfully "hold" the female toad to lay eggs, and the toad without an object will "embrace" other animals, from frogs to carp, and even pythons, and the scene of "toad riding snakes" can be seen everywhere.
How did the sugar cane toad enter Australia?
This matter also has to start from sugar cane, we all know that Westerners like to eat a variety of sweets, after the meal will basically come to a dessert, and the production of desserts must use sugar, the most important raw material for making sugar is sugar cane, Australia's main financial income is partly from raw sugar, as the most important raw material of sugar cane, sugar cane, to bring more than 2 billion US dollars of income to Australia every year.
Australia was originally devoid of sugarcane, and Europeans brought sugarcane from Equatorial Guinea to Australia when they pioneered Australia. Coinciding with the 19th century, Europeans spread their sugar addiction to the world, and the demand for sugar in the world soared, and sugarcane became a sought-after commodity.
And Queensland in northeast Australia, because of the sunshine and suitable climate, is very suitable for growing sugarcane, many places have begun to grow sugarcane in large quantities, Queensland quickly built a large sugarcane planting area, as of 2018, Queensland's sugarcane production has accounted for 95% of Australia's total sugarcane production.
The abundant sugar in sugarcane not only attracts humans, but also attracts many pests, among which there is inevitably a sugarcane beetle, and sugarcane growers in all parts of the world are plagued by sugarcane beetles, but the origin is different, australia's gray-backed sugarcane beetles are native to Australia.
These gray-backed sugarcane beetles from birth to death, a lifetime cane is inseparable from sugarcane, female beetles will lay eggs in the ground about 20 to 45 cm of sugarcane roots, juvenile beetles will feed on sugarcane roots, after being eaten sugarcane roots will rot, conventional pesticides can not hurt them at all, adult gray-backed sugarcane beetles will leave the soil, run to the top of sugarcane to erode sugarcane leaves.
Australia was tricked into bringing in 200 million invincible toads.
While Australians are worried about the grey-backed sugarcane beetle, farmers in Central and South America are sending a large toad to the altar, a toad native to the rainforest that agronomists use to control the growing number of voles.
These wild toads are huge, do not shame the rainforest species, the average body length can reach about 20cm, one has more than 2 pounds, is a veritable giant.
The logic of the agronomist is very simple, these toads are so large, they can definitely eat the voles directly, raise more of these toads, and the problem of vole flooding can be solved. As soon as I heard this method, I knew that it was unreliable, and as a result, the farmers in Central and South America really believed in the method.
The result of the matter can be imagined, there are so many other insects to eat, why bother to eat voles? Farmers in Central and South America are literally being poked up by agronomists.
Although this group of toads did not solve the toads, they were remembered by the world, and decades later, the sugarcane fields of Puerto Rico, when infested by sugarcane beetles, once again showed the strange brain circuits of the Americans, pinning their hopes on this giant toad.
In the 1820s, Puerto Rico officially introduced this toad, hoping to kill this group of sugarcane beetles, and the beetle plague really disappeared, no matter what the facts were, the toads took the credit, and the puerto Rican people gave them a name in order to thank the toads - sugarcane toads.
This matter immediately spread throughout the scientific community, and even the magazine Nature wrote an article specifically for this group of toads, entitled "Toads Save Sugar Crops", with authoritative scientific journals reporting, the world believes that sugarcane toads can control sugarcane beetles, sugarcane toads can also be regarded as a war of fame.
Australians, who are being tortured to death by gray-backed sugarcane beetles, see hope in the sugarcane toad. In June 1935, the Australian Sugar Board Institute introduced 102 sugar cane toads from Hawaii, which took two years to breed to 62,000, and the toads were then released to Queensland.
In the following year, scientists found that this giant toad was unable to kill the gray-backed sugarcane beetle, the juvenile beetles were hidden in the ground, and could not eat at all, and the adult beetles flew directly to the top of the sugarcane, and they could not reach it.
Sugarcane toad is not stupid, since you can't eat it, then give up, anyway, there are a large number of other bugs, and there are no natural enemies, it began to flood in large quantities, not only did not solve the problem of beetles, but also attracted the flood of toads, Australians began to look for the root of the problem, what is wrong?
It turned out that the reduction of beetles in Puerto Rico was not due to sugar cane toads, but to the decrease in the number of beetles due to the decrease in rainfall, which should have been the "rain god", and the result was on the toad, and nature magazine also left a black spot. The reason why Australia is flooded with toads is purely deceived by Nature magazine!
How crossed are the sugarcane toads in Australia? Even pythons and crocodiles can't do anything about it!
In the 1940s and 1960s, sugarcane toads spread from northern Australia to southern Australia at a rate of more than 10 kilometers per year. By the end of the 20th century, the rate had grown to more than 50 kilometres, and many parts of Australia were occupied by toads, and in the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, the Australian government listed the impact of sugarcane toads as a "key threat process".
An Australian study showed that the sugarcane toad had the greatest impact on reptiles, 75 species of crocodiles and snakes were threatened, and the sugarcane toad was able to run rampant in Australia, relying on its high venom, whether crocodiles or pythons, there was nothing they could do about it.
Another set of data suggests that a large number of predators have died after eating sugarcane toads, and the population of native Species in Australia will decline sharply wherever the sugarcane toads go. There is a species of Australian northern possum, which was originally abundant in Australia, but has decreased by more than 97% since the emergence of the sugarcane toad and is now an endangered species.
Not only that, in the breeding period of sugarcane toads will have "hugging right" behavior, that is, male toads holding heterosexual toads, in order to stimulate female toads to lay eggs, complete in vitro fertilization activities, and female toads have a limited number of, flooded male toads began to hunger and hunger, whether crocodiles or pythons, the body is crawling with sugarcane toads, Australian animals are angry and dare not speak!
In response to these rampant toads, Australian scientists have proposed two coping strategies, one is to place male toads that cannot reproduce and let them compete with other males for resources. The second is to insert a gene into the female toad so that they produce only female offspring, hoping to limit the reproduction of the sugarcane toad.
However, this is all theoretical methods, the specific danger is still unknown, perhaps it can really solve the problem of sugarcane toad flooding, perhaps it will lead to another disaster, I hope that this time Australia must think clearly and then do it!