Category: News and Views
Exploding toads
Date: April 25 2005
Hundreds of toads have met a bizarre and sinister end in Germany in recent days: 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.
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.
The death toll has been so bad 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 2am and 3am, which appears to be the 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.
they really need to tighten up on those genetic side effects.
Wow! this is amazing. I wonder how they behave before they explode?
Sick dude. This reminds me of when my friend stepped on a small frog by accident once and it made a farting noise and then a popping noise. pooor little amphibians.
Yeah, that's got to be crappy, to just be moving along and then swell up and explode. Poor toads. *frowns* And poor frog too. At least that frog one was an accident and your friend probably didn't even notice until it was too late. But it's sad for all those toads. It probably has to be some kinds of chemicals or polution or something that it's happening in that specific place.
Leilani
its not easy being green
I'm sure the ones which see the others exploding will have a little cry about it before exploding themselves. Perhaps the toads have a war on terror and the terrorist toads are blowing themselves up or something, who knows.
suecide toads? hmm different concept, although i guess it kinda goes along the same lines at the lemmings who throw themselves off cliffs every year.