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04-28-2005, 08:39 AM
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#1 of 15 
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Location: Alexandria, VA
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Exploding...toads?
In Germany. Via the Tony Kornheiser show:
Quote:
Hundreds of toads have met a bizarre and sinister end in Germany in recent days, it was reported: they exploded.
According to reports from animal welfare workers and veterinarians as many as a thousand of the amphibians have perished after their bodies swelled to bursting point and their entrails were propelled for up to a metre (three feet).
It is like "a science fiction film", according to Werner Smolnik of a nature protection society in the northern city of Hamburg, where the phenomenon of the exploding toad has been observed.
"You see the animals crawling on the ground, swelling and then exploding."
He said the bodies of the toads expanded to three and a half times their normal size.
"I have never seen such a thing," said veterinarian Otto Horst. So bad has the death toll been that the lake in the Altona district of Hamburg has been dubbed "the pond of death."
Access to it has been sealed off and every night a biologist visits it between 2:00 and 3:00 am, which appears to be peak time for batrachians to go bang.
Explanations include an unknown virus, a fungus that has infected the water, or crows, which in an echo of the Alfred Hitchcock movie "The Birds", attack the toads, literally scaring them to death.
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04-28-2005, 11:49 AM
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#3 of 15
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Tis the crows:
Quote:
Explanation for 'exploding toads'
29apr05
TOADS have been exploding by the hundred in Germany because they are being attacked by crows, a veterinary surgeon said.
Animal welfare workers and veterinarians had reported that as many as 1,000 toads had swelled to bursting point and exploded in recent days, propelling their entrails up to a metre into the air.
Now a veterinary surgeon, Frank Mutschmann, who has examined the remains of the toads, said they had been pierced with a single peck by crows trying to eat their livers.
This in turn caused the toads to explode.
"The toads swell up as a form of self-defence. But when their livers are taken away and their stomachs are punctured, their blood vessels explode, their lungs collapse and the other organs come out," Mutschmann said.
"Crows are intelligent animals. They learn very quickly how to eat the toads' livers," he said, adding that between three and five crows could kill around 100 toads.
So many toads have died in a lake in the Altona district of Hamburg that it has been dubbed "the pond of death".
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Source: http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/com...5E1702,00.html
Question: Assuming both Crows and Toads have been around for hundreds of thousand, if not millions of years, why have crows just started popping toads?
On a vaguely related note, did they ever figure out the cause of those spontaneous combustions in Italy some months ago? Stuff was just roasting all over the place for no apparent reason.
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H
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04-28-2005, 12:42 PM
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#4 of 15
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Thanks for the explanatory link, H. What a weird phenomenon. I'm wondering the same thing you are: did the crows just figure this out?
Also, the story's a little unclear: does the crow puncture the toad's stomach and then fly away, or does he actually pull the liver out of the still-kicking toad? That would be insane!
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04-28-2005, 12:54 PM
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#5 of 15
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More questions:
Why the liver specifically?
What is the duration of the inflation?
Does anyone have a video of this thing? I wanna see a toad pop like a balloon.
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H
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04-28-2005, 08:36 PM
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#6 of 15
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Let me get this straight... crows are surgically pecking out thousands of toad livers... leaving the rest of the toad alive and uneaten... who then, in its frightened state, blows up. 
Well, at least an exploding toad isn't as bad as an exploding whale:
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04-28-2005, 10:33 PM
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#7 of 15
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Hahaha....the exploding whale appears again!!
It was kinda creepy when I was reading about the exploding frogs. Wasn't there an episode of "The X-Files" about this?? |
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04-29-2005, 08:30 AM
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#8 of 15
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Those poor toads -- apparently they are in tremendously agony while puffing up and they even continue to live for a short period after they burst.
Obviously there are similarly gruesome fates for many animals (ever see a lion rip apart a gazelle?) but it just seems different with the toads, possibly because of the "surgical" removal of their livers.
I too wonder how the crows, after all these years, just figured this out.
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04-29-2005, 07:06 PM
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#10 of 15
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Quote:
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Assuming both Crows and Toads have been around for hundreds of thousand, if not millions of years, why have crows just started popping toads?
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There are similar incidences in the animal behaviour literature reporting birds apparently spontaneously finding new feeding methods that you thought they'd have learnt a long time ago. No-one know why.
Another tale of bird feeding that's worth reading if you have a spare five minutes:
http://www.thecorpuscle.com/2005/04/the_cream_myth.html |
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