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Guest Column

Ugly toad growing too big for its hop

By JERRY BLIZIN
Published December 27, 2007

Leave it to our friends in Australia to point the way to ridding Florida of one of its worst wildlife imports: Bufo marinus, the ugly, warty cane toad that has, for more than 70 years, been poisoning Florida dogs and cats and just plain frightening the human population.

The cane toad was imported to Florida (and to Australia) in the 1930s to rid sugar cane crops of pests. Normally about the size of a softball, the toad can grow to dinner plate size or more if well fed.

Unfortunately, the toad also has a nomadic streak. Over 70-odd years it has migrated in great numbers from South Florida to mid Florida, despite a conspicuous shortage of sugar cane in these parts. It reproduces like mad, laying 8,000 to 50,000 eggs at a time. The eggs are poisonous and so are the toad tadpoles.

Bufo will eat anything in sight, including dog and cat food. Its secret weapon is a white sticky toxin which it can squirt from two glands on its neck. If this stuff gets into a human's eyes, big trouble. And it can also kill birds, snakes, and even koi fish in backyard ponds.

Like the ubiquitous kudzu vine, there seemed to be no way to get rid of these monsters. Only 125 of them were originally introduced to Australia (from Hawaii, though the toad is really native to a large area ranging from Mexico to the Amazon basin). That was enough to create an explosion of toads who went walkabout. They now cover about 400,000 square miles of Australian land. To aid their migration, they began growing longer limbs, Aussie researchers discovered.

But a recent study has disclosed that these bigger, longer-legged toads are developing arthritis. Ten percent of them already show spinal abnormalities. Each hop puts greater stress on the toad's skeleton, and according to science writer Henry Fountain, lab tests revealed that after 15 minutes of hopping, the arthritic toads were able to cover less distance with each new hop.

And so, I suppose, Australian cane toads may one day die out like the dinosaurs, just because they're getting too big. Picture a gimpy Florida toad, without any access to arthritic relief from Tylenol, trying to continue its predatory rounds. For many of us seniors who've already been slowed by arthritis, we may one day be able to take grim satisfaction in the fact that the disease can also play havoc with cane toads.

I can't wait for the well-publicized American obesity crisis to catch up with our domestic cane toads, which used to make regular appearances in my North Pinellas back yard. Let them struggle against overweight and immobility, just like I do. Fair dinkum!

Jerry Blizin is a retired journalist who lives in Tarpon Springs.

[Last modified December 26, 2007, 20:46:28]