Exploding toads in Germany baffle scientists

Exploding toads in Germany baffle scientists

BERLIN (AP) — What's making toads puff up and explode in northern Europe? More than 1,000 toad corpses have been found at a pond in an upscale neighborhood in Hamburg and over the border in Denmark after bloating and bursting.

It's left onlookers baffled. The pond water in Hamburg has been tested, but its quality is no better or worse than elsewhere in the city. The toad remains have been checked for a virus or bacterium, but none has been found.

One German scientist studying the splattered amphibian remains has a theory: Hungry crows are pecking out their livers.

"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."

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 balloons before they suddenly burst.

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

"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 has found no evidence the toads were diseased. The institute also ruled out a fungus brought in from South America was infecting the toads.

Other theories have been that horses on a nearby track might have infected the amphibians with a virus, or even that the toads are committing 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 added.

In the meantime, officials in Hamburg have advised residents to stay away from the pond, which German tabloids have dubbed "the death pool."

...now that's gangsta.

so the toads aren't exploding

i was watching NOVA the other night and they were talking about frogs

and how they are big indicators of things that are wrong with our environment

frogs are becoming hermaphrodites a lot these days too.

scary shit.

the ecosystem is fucked.

i saw this on the news the other day.

alka seltzer and birds?

^^ that's what this reminded me of

Sounds nasty. I've seen dead frogs turn blue by polluted water, but that ....? my money is on kids with rolaids!

Look, heres the deal ok?

M-80s in one hand a bottle of tequila in the other, somebody tell me how else i could have reacted.

That is pretty funny

that would be very amusing to see. some one told me if you give a sea gull an antacid it will explode in mid flight. I reckon that would be classic. :burn:

i thought the thread said "exploding heads".

none the less this reminds me of being a kid and pouring a circle of salt around a slug and waiting.

i dont know why.

Originally posted by symbols@May 5 2005, 01:03 PM

i was watching NOVA the other night and they were talking about frogs

and how they are big indicators of things that are wrong with our environment

 

frogs are becoming hermaphrodites a lot these days too.

scary shit.

the ecosystem is fucked.

Quoted post

Oh yeah I heard about how some of the pollutants are causing the animal kingdom to produce more estrogen. Scary shit.

I remember a plague of toads.

What was it? Winter, 99/00 I think, only two weeks of snow in michigan. Very strange. Birds didn't even migrate. That summer there was so much humity in the air, clouds everywhere, a cloud followed the sun from sun up, to sun down. Then at night all that humidity would condense, and it would rain and thunder and lightning all night. This happened all summer. I guess toads loved the humidity because they were EVERYFUCKINGWHERE! I would step on about 10 on my way to and from work, not even trying to.

Man.. I'm a farsighted asthmatic with thinning hair (I'm 22).

I've lived right on the fringes of either Rouge, Zug Island, McClouth Steel, or Industrial Park my entire life. Every single 'industrial' area you see in Detroit I've never lived more than 5-10 miles from.

Neither of my parents wear glasses, have lung problems, or thin hair.

Fuck my environment.

Originally posted by 26SidedCube@May 6 2005, 11:27 AM

Man.. I'm a farsighted asthmatic with thinning hair (I'm 22).

 

I've lived right on the fringes of either Rouge, Zug Island, McClouth Steel, or Industrial Park my entire life. Every single 'industrial' area you see in Detroit I've never lived more than 5-10 miles from.

 

Neither of my parents wear glasses, have lung problems, or thin hair.

 

Fuck my environment.

Quoted post

Damn man... I hear you. I know people who can barely get the grass to grow because of the toxicity.

But the good news is they moved a shitload of factories down to mexico.....

Now we have a cleaner environment but no jobs.

I promise I will stop smashing those frogs.

Reminds me of the toads in stones;

i stole this text.

Being at my seat near the village of Meudon, and overlooking a quarryman whom I had set to break some very large and hard stones, in the middle of one we found a huge toad, full of life and without any visible aperture by which it could get there...The laborer told me it was not the first time he had met with a toad and the like creatures within huge blocks of stone...

This account, which appeared in the 1761 edition of Annual Register, was attributed to Ambroise Pare, the chief surgeon of Henry III of France in the 16th century. It is an early example of phenomenon. Logically this report is impossible. The stone had to be thousands, if not millions of years old. The toad shouldn't have a lifetime of more than a few years. If it was really sealed in the stone, how did it get there? Or if it was entombed when the stone was made, how did it survive?

Perhaps one such story over a period of hundreds of years can just be dismissed as a folktale or a hoax, but there are others. Workers doing an excavation in Hartlepool, England, on April 7, 1865, split open a block of magnesium limestone to discover a living toad. The Hartlepool Free Press reported, "The cavity was no larger than its body, and presented the appearance of being cast for it. The toad's eyes shone with unusual brilliancy, and it was full of vivacity on its liberation." The animal was very pale when first discovered with a color similar to that of the rock that had encased it, but later the toad turned to an olive-brown. "It appeared," the Free Press continued, "when first discovered, desirous to perform the process of respiration, but evidently experienced some difficulty, and the only sign of success consisted of a 'barking' noise, which it continues to make invariably at present on being touched. The toad is in the possession of Mr. S. Horner, the president of the Natural Historical Society, and continues in as lively a state as when found. On a minute examination of its mouth it is found to be completely closed, and the barking noise it makes proceeds from its nostrils. The claws of its fore feet are turned inwards, and its hind ones are of extraordinary length and unlike the present English toad."

Turtles have also gotten this treatment. In August 1975 construction workers in Fort Worth, Texas, were breaking up concrete that had been laid down more than a year before when they came across a living green turtle. The animal must have been caught in the concrete as it had been poured because the body-shaped hole in which it had stayed during that time was clearly visible.

wtf... that is very strange.

i wonder if they can live on just water absorbed from the stone. but how can you squeeze water from a stone? concrete yea.... stone?

weird... some fortean times shit there.

*And what are you doing here on a friday night? Isn't it FunTime for the PartyTeam?