Exploding toads?!?!?!?

[Invictus]

Now this is scary!


http://news.sympatico.msn.ca/Home/ContentPosting.aspx?contentid=1e77c08a7488445abdea f4dd8bb1f97b&show=False&number=0&showbyline=False&subtitle=&detect=&abc=abc



BERLIN (AP) - More than 1,000 toads have puffed up and exploded in a Hamburg pond in recent weeks, and German scientists still have no explanation for what's causing the combustion, an official said Wednesday.


Both the pond's water and body parts of the toads have been tested, but scientists have been unable to find a bacteria or virus that would cause the toads to swell up and pop, said Janne Kloepper, of the Hamburg-based Institute for Hygiene and the Environment.

"It's absolutely strange," she said. "We have a really unique story here in Hamburg. This phenomenon really doesn't seem to have appeared anywhere before."

The toads at a pond in the upscale neighbourhood of Altona have been blowing up since the beginning of the month, filling up like balloons until their stomachs suddenly burst.

"It looks like a scene from a science-fiction movie," Werner Schmolnik, the head of a local environment group, told the Hamburger Abendblatt daily. "The bloated animals suffer for several minutes before they finally die."

Biologists have come up with several theories, but Kloepper said that most have been ruled out.

The pond's water quality is no better or worse than other bodies of water in Hamburg, the toads did not appear to have a disease, and a laboratory in Berlin has ruled out the possibility that it is a fungus that made its way from South America, she said.

She said that tests will continue. In the meantime, city residents have been warned to stay away from the pond.

[peterm15]

wow..... thats wierd.. i can see the next big box office movie being about something like that...

[Scotty Allen]

I wonder if they have been licking humans?

[gonesnakee]

Usually stories like this involve firecrackers up their butts, Mark

[Kyle Barker]

bbc link.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4486247.stm

[joey]

Birds May Be Behind Exploding German Toads By MATT SURMAN, Associated Press Writer
Thu Apr 28, 9:02 PM ET



BERLIN - Why are toads puffing up and spontaneously exploding in northern Europe? It began in a posh German neighborhood and has spread across the border into Denmark. It's left onlookers baffled, but one German scientist studying the splattered amphibian remains now has a theory: Hungry crows may be pecking out their livers.

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"The crows are clever," said Frank Mutschmann, a Berlin veterinarian who collected and tested specimens at the Hamburg pond. "They learn quickly from watching other crows how to get the livers."

So far, more than 1,000 toad corpses have been found at a pond in Hamburg and in Denmark. But the pond water in Hamburg has been tested, and its quality is no better or worse than elsewhere in the city. The remains have been checked for a virus or bacteria, but none has been found.

Based on the wounds, Mutschmann said, it appears that a bird pecks into the toad with its beak between the amphibian's chest and abdominal cavity, and the toad puffs itself up as a natural defense mechanism.

But, because the liver is missing and there's a hole in the toad's body, the blood vessels and lungs burst and the other organs ooze out, he said.

As gruesome as it sounds, it isn't actually that unusual, he said.

"It's not unique — it's in a city area, and that makes it spectacular," Mutschmann said. "Of course, it's something very dramatic."

There have also been reports of exploded toads in a pond near Laasby in central Jutland in Denmark.

Local environmental workers in Hamburg have described it as a scene out of a horror or science fiction movie, with the bloated frogs agonizing and twitching for several minutes, inflating like a balloon before suddenly bursting.

"It's horrible," biologist Heidi Mayerhoefer was quoted as telling the Hamburger Morgenpost daily.

"The toads burst, the entrails slide out. But the animal isn't immediately dead — they keep struggling for several minutes."

Hamburg's Institute for Hygiene and the Environment regularly tests water quality in the city, and found no evidence that the toads were diseased. The institute even ruled out that the toads were suffering because of a fungus brought in from South America.

Other theories have been that horses on a nearby track infected them with a virus, or even that the toads are taking the selfless way out — sacrificing themselves by suicide to save others from overpopulation.

Could hungry crows be a reasonable answer?

"We haven't seen that. It might be, it might not be," said institute spokeswoman Janne Kloepper. "It's speculation," until it's observed, she said.

Local officials in Hamburg were advising residents to stay away from the pond dubbed by German tabloids, "the death pool