NT: Invaiding cane toad evolving with faster, longer legs: study

AAP General News (Australia)
02-16-2006
NT: Invaiding cane toad evolving with faster, longer legs: study

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By Karen Michelmore

DARWIN, Feb 16 AAP - Australia's hated cane toads are evolving - growing faster, longer
legs as they rampage through the nation's tropics.

Researchers have clocked the toxic pests hopping up to two kilometres in a single night,
or more than 50km a year - five times quicker than their predecessors travelled in the
1940s to 1960s.

"There is very clear evidence that toads are evolving rapidly," says Professor Rick
Shine, from the University of Sydney's School of Biological Sciences.

Scientists have been examining the warty pests at Fogg Dam, 60km east of Darwin, for
a year, attaching radio transmitters to track how far and fast they can travel.

Their research, published today in the scientific journal Nature, found the first toads
invading an area now have longer, faster legs - which make up 45 per cent of their body
length.

When the cane toad was first introduced in Queensland 70 years ago - in a disastrous
attempt to control insects in sugar cane fields - its legs made up about 35-40 per cent
of its body length, Prof Shine said.

"Frogs and toads generally are slow moving little creatures," Prof Shine said.

"(But) our toads are moving north west, and they are just going as fast as they can."

He said it was possible toads were evolving to be faster because there was some advantage
to being first to invade an area - either juicier grubs or less competition for food.

Cane toads have marched across Queensland, northern NSW, and the NT, poisoning millions
of native animals including in world heritage-listed Kakadu National Park.

They now cover more than a million square kilometres of tropical and subtropical Australia.

The report came as the NT renewed its attack on the toad, which is fast approaching Darwin.

Locals are being urged to check their yards and nearby parks for cane toads on March
14 - the official "Not in My Backyard Day" of action.

There has been fierce debate over the best way to kill a cane toad since federal MP
Dave Tollner last year called on locals to smash them with golf clubs and turn the eradication
of toads into a new blood sport.

The RSPCA has urged locals to wipe hemorrhoid cream on the toad before humanely freezing
them, and community group FrogWatch is mulching up carcasses into Australia's first toad
garden fertiliser.

AAP km/lma/bwl

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