Feb. 15, 2006 — Fat, toxic toads at the leading edge of an Australian invasion have evolved longer legs than those behind the front lines, report biologists.
The alarming discovery not only means the toads can spread more quickly over the continent, but it raises the possibility that under the right conditions, animal evolution can happen in just decades, not eons.
That, in turn, has major implications for animals adapting to global warming, as well as biological pest control projects, which generally take for granted that carefully studied animals introduced to fight off invasive species can not evolve into something troublesome.
The inexorable, seven-decade-long expansion of cane toads from their disastrous introduction to Queensland in 1935 has long been monitored by biologists.
One such biologist was recently driving along a toad-crowded road one night, along the invasion front about 40 miles east of Darwin, when he noticed how desperately the toads were hopping grimly toward him, all facing the same way: into virgin territory.
"It was just like an invasion in a science fiction movie," said biologist Richard Shine of the University of Sydney.
Shine is a snake specialist, but when the toads began heading toward his study area, he decided it would be wise to "know thine enemy" before they arrived, he explained.
So for years Shine and his colleagues have been tracking cane toads, and as a matter of course they weigh the toads and measure them. Those records came in handy when they discovered that some cane toads at the invasion front were covering an unprecedented mile-and-a-quarter (two kilometers) each night.
"Sure enough, there was a pattern," said Shine of their astonishing leg-length discovery.
Not only were the legs of pioneer toads significantly longer, but the same athletic build dies out among toads as areas become more settled.
In other words, there appears to be a great advantage to getting the first crack at virgin territory. That boils down to the opportunity to produce more viable tadpoles that grow up to continue the line. For seven decades now that advantage has been awarded to cane toads with the longest legs. That has lead to the steady breeding of longer and longer-legged toads that can keep beating the crowd.
The disheartening result is that the toad invasion rate has increased from seven miles per year in the 1950s to a whopping 30 miles per year today, report Shine and his colleagues in the Feb. 16 edition of Nature.
The silver lining is that the cane toads are showing how quickly some species can adapt to new environments, a challenge now facing innumerable species worldwide as the global climate warms, said ecologist and rapid evolution researcher David Skelly of Yale University.
"We never think of evolutionary changes happening that fast," said Skelly of his fellow ecologists.
That has to change, because the cane toads are just a high profile case of something that is being seen in many organisms all over the planet, he said.
"It doesn't mean that we have no problem (with climate change) or that all species will be viable," said Skelly. But there is evidence that many species might be more able to adapt than previously believed.
Another place where people have to start thinking about rapid evolution is at the federal and state agencies where they evaluate exotic species for release as biological checks on exotic pests, said Skelly.
Right now those agencies don't consider the possibility that a new exotic species will very likely change in its new environment, for better or worse. It's time they started thinking differently, he said.
Let the humans hunt them to extinction and thus exterminate them via greed.
It's something our species does well.
A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory.Leonard Nimoy.
Now I did a job. I got nothing but trouble since I did it, not to mention more than a few unkind words as regard to my character so let me make this abundantly clear. I do the job. And then I get paid.- Malcolm Reynolds, Captain of Serenity, which sums up my feelings regarding the lawsuit discussed here.
If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich. - John F. Kennedy
We do have volunteers catching the toads as they near the Western Australia border. I think Broomstick might be onto something. These toads were introduced pests with IIRC the ability to change sex, making the idea of originally just bringing male toads into Australia redundant.
Also we have to be careful with handling the toads. They are poisonous.
Never apologise for being a geek, because they won't apologise to you for being an arsehole. John Barrowman - 22 June 2014 Perth Supernova.
Countries I have been to - 14.
Australia, Canada, China, Colombia, Denmark, Ecuador, Finland, Germany, Malaysia, Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, Sweden, USA.
Always on the lookout for more nice places to visit.
mr friendly guy wrote:Also we have to be careful with handling the toads. They are poisonous.
This, from the land of funnel web spiders, box jellies, and barbed-wire hula-hooping? "The toads are poisonous" I'm sure we can appeal to macho stupidity for the eradication of Evil Cane Toads.
A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory.Leonard Nimoy.
Now I did a job. I got nothing but trouble since I did it, not to mention more than a few unkind words as regard to my character so let me make this abundantly clear. I do the job. And then I get paid.- Malcolm Reynolds, Captain of Serenity, which sums up my feelings regarding the lawsuit discussed here.
If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich. - John F. Kennedy
I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season."
You Aussies already built a fence to control the rabbits; I think its time to get cracking on another one. Either that, or design a land mine the size of a pistol cartridge and lay trillions of them.
"This cult of special forces is as sensible as to form a Royal Corps of Tree Climbers and say that no soldier who does not wear its green hat with a bunch of oak leaves stuck in it should be expected to climb a tree"
— Field Marshal William Slim 1956
I thought the toads were only poisonous if you have their secretions in your mouth. I really can't see Aussies having toad biting contests.
"If one needed proof that a guitar was more than wood and string, that a song was more than notes and words, and that a man could be more than a name and a few faded pictures, then Robert Johnson’s recordings were all one could ask for."
So that's where they get their mangled dentition...
"If one needed proof that a guitar was more than wood and string, that a song was more than notes and words, and that a man could be more than a name and a few faded pictures, then Robert Johnson’s recordings were all one could ask for."
wolveraptor wrote:I thought the toads were only poisonous if you have their secretions in your mouth. I really can't see Aussies having toad biting contests.
They are seriously poisonous.
Getting any of the poison in mucous membranes is enough to make you seriosuly ill. Eat them, even cooked, and you can die within 15 minutes.
"Okay, I'll have the truth with a side order of clarity." ~ Dr. Daniel Jackson.
"Reality has a well-known liberal bias." ~ Stephen Colbert
"One Drive, One Partition, the One True Path" ~ ars technica forums - warrens - on hhd partitioning schemes.
Let the humans hunt them to extinction and thus exterminate them via greed.
It's something our species does well.
There's actually an interesting story about this. Hawaii used to offer a bounty for each Crown of Thorns starfish captured, since they were eating up the local ecosystem. However, fishermen would simply cut up some of the starfish and toss the overboard. Each section of the cut up starfish would regenerate, and therefore ensure that there would always be more starfish for the fishermen to catch.
In other words, don't underestimate greed.
I am capable of rearranging the fundamental building blocks of the universe in under six seconds. I shelve physics texts under "Fiction" in my personal library! I am grasping the reigns of the universe's carriage, and every morning get up and shout "Giddy up, boy!" You may never grasp the complexities of what I do, but at least have the courtesy to feign something other than slack-jawed oblivion in my presence. I, sir, am a wizard, and I break more natural laws before breakfast than of which you are even aware!
In my experience the easiest way to kill them is to fill up a Super Soaker or other water pistol with a strong detergent/water mix and go around spraying them with a short burst.
Let the humans hunt them to extinction and thus exterminate them via greed.
It's something our species does well.
There's actually an interesting story about this. Hawaii used to offer a bounty for each Crown of Thorns starfish captured, since they were eating up the local ecosystem. However, fishermen would simply cut up some of the starfish and toss the overboard. Each section of the cut up starfish would regenerate, and therefore ensure that there would always be more starfish for the fishermen to catch.
In other words, don't underestimate greed.
Or the scientific/biological knowledge of fishermen...
May I point out that dimembered cane toads do not regenerate?
A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory.Leonard Nimoy.
Now I did a job. I got nothing but trouble since I did it, not to mention more than a few unkind words as regard to my character so let me make this abundantly clear. I do the job. And then I get paid.- Malcolm Reynolds, Captain of Serenity, which sums up my feelings regarding the lawsuit discussed here.
If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich. - John F. Kennedy
ggs wrote:Getting any of the poison in mucous membranes is enough to make you seriosuly ill. Eat them, even cooked, and you can die within 15 minutes.
Last I checked, your skin isn't a mucous membrane. You can still pick 'em up and have toad chucking contests.
"If one needed proof that a guitar was more than wood and string, that a song was more than notes and words, and that a man could be more than a name and a few faded pictures, then Robert Johnson’s recordings were all one could ask for."
Let the humans hunt them to extinction and thus exterminate them via greed.
It's something our species does well.
There's actually an interesting story about this. Hawaii used to offer a bounty for each Crown of Thorns starfish captured, since they were eating up the local ecosystem. However, fishermen would simply cut up some of the starfish and toss the overboard. Each section of the cut up starfish would regenerate, and therefore ensure that there would always be more starfish for the fishermen to catch.
In other words, don't underestimate greed.
Or the scientific/biological knowledge of fishermen...
May I point out that dimembered cane toads do not regenerate?
In the immortal words of Havelock Vetinari: "Tax the rat farms."
I didn't hear anything about people eating the cane toads themselves, but I did see a part where they would harvest some of the toxic secretions, dry and then procede to smoke them.
Also for what they eat, apparently they can also eat dog food.
They have also seen to attempt to mate with things such as hours-dead flattened cane toads, shoes, and little lumps of mud.
Admiral Valdemar wrote:No sense of adventure. Where's the Steve Irwin in you?
Locked in a steel box with lead wieghts strapped to it and dumped at sea on a stormy night.
"Okay, I'll have the truth with a side order of clarity." ~ Dr. Daniel Jackson.
"Reality has a well-known liberal bias." ~ Stephen Colbert
"One Drive, One Partition, the One True Path" ~ ars technica forums - warrens - on hhd partitioning schemes.
Heh, I remember Battletoads as a cheap copy/competition of Ninja Turtles a long while ago.
"If one needed proof that a guitar was more than wood and string, that a song was more than notes and words, and that a man could be more than a name and a few faded pictures, then Robert Johnson’s recordings were all one could ask for."
