This toad was recently gobbled up whole by a dog in Darwin whose owner then took him to the vet's where the dog was induced to vomit and blahhhhhhhooohagh up came the toad still very much alive. So the vet called him Spew. Well you'd hardly call him Nathan or Felicity, would you.There are quite a few toads in Larnook and at Maryville, though I'm yet to kill any other than those I run over. Every morning after a wet evening the road is littered by little/not so little toad corpses, usually on their back with their pudgy toad arms stretched upwards. To kill or not to kill that is the question. Killing the odd toad that I encounter at night won't make a scrap of difference ecologically, so I ponder whether I am obliged to kill them. I looked closely at one the other night by torchlight and I discovered little flecks of orange and green and yellow scattered on its warty back. It was quite pretty.
We do have quite a few frogs: so far - green tree frog; dwarf tree frog; peron's tree frog; rocket frog; bleating tree frog; striped marsh frog,but alas, apparently the red bellied black snake population has taken a tumble because of the toads. That's probably a good enough reason to kill the ones I come across. Pass me the freezer bag!
Just for your info: the most humane way of killing a toad is to place it in a plastic bag and put it in the fridge for half an hour or so. Then once it's in a deep toady sleep, you place it in the freezer. And leave it there for a good 24hrs. I was speaking with a biology teacher the other day who told me she was using thawed out toads once for disssection purposes and a number of ther toads regained consciousness whilst opened up on the dissecting boards. Ouch.
According to the work of Prof Rick Shine and his colleagues, the toads at the frontline of the invasion in Northern Teritory are evolving/adapting so rapidly to develop bigger legs so they can invade more quickly that they are developing arthritis.
More info on toads go to: http://www.canetoadsinoz.com/
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