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Exploding toads baffle German experts
AFP/Yahoo ^ | Sat Apr 23,12:16 PM ET

Posted on 04/23/2005 2:57:10 PM PDT by martin_fierro

Exploding toads baffle German experts

Sat Apr 23,12:16 PM ET

BERLIN (AFP) - Hundreds of toads have met a bizarre and sinister end in Germany in recent days, it was reported: 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 (three feet).

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. So bad has the death toll been 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 2:00 and 3:00 am, which appears to be 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.


TOPICS: Cheese, Moose, Sister; Chit/Chat; Pets/Animals; Test Topic, Ignore It; Weird Stuff
KEYWORDS: toadexplode
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To: garandgal

Boom!!


41 posted on 04/23/2005 9:28:05 PM PDT by curlewbird
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To: Charles Henrickson
"Ich bin ein Ballooner."

ROTFLMAOAPMP!

42 posted on 04/23/2005 9:39:59 PM PDT by El Gato (Activist Judges can twist the Constitution into anything they want ... or so they think.)
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To: bannie
What kind of FLESH is that???

Looks like human skin, a knee to be precise. Stained with the scrub they use to sanitize the skin before surgery. The placement of the tools looks like what they did when they did arthroscopic surgery on my knee. They didn't even have to suture the wounds.

43 posted on 04/23/2005 9:45:01 PM PDT by El Gato (Activist Judges can twist the Constitution into anything they want ... or so they think.)
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To: Charles Henrickson
LMAO! Now that's funny!


44 posted on 04/23/2005 9:52:10 PM PDT by BigBadWolf
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To: bannie

Schadenfrosch?


45 posted on 04/23/2005 9:52:29 PM PDT by Wilhelm Tell
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To: mo
Helen Thomas?

or Helen Thomas?


46 posted on 04/23/2005 10:20:21 PM PDT by Dashing Dasher (WYGMADIITYWIM?)
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To: Fam4Bush

With beef cattle (my only experiences), they were sometimes poked more than once since the rumen seals up in seconds. The pressure actually sufficates them, by squeezing the lungs.

(I used to farm, but the big farms squeezed the 'air' out of my way of life.)


47 posted on 04/23/2005 11:07:54 PM PDT by Zuriel (Acts 2:38,39....nearly 2,000 years and still working today!)
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To: Zuriel

Not much chance for the independent farmer these days...


48 posted on 04/23/2005 11:11:17 PM PDT by Fam4Bush (Once upon a time, I was a spy...or maybe that's now...)
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To: tet68

Been there, done that and it's not pleasant.


49 posted on 04/24/2005 7:56:18 AM PDT by unkus
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To: martin_fierro
+ = Not good
50 posted on 04/24/2005 10:42:14 AM PDT by 4mycountry ("No, Samus, prioritize! Getting off of an exploding ship is more important than fighting a dragon!")
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To: martin_fierro
What next? This morning the infobabe on FNC mentioned an exploding IUD.
51 posted on 04/24/2005 12:14:29 PM PDT by Mike Darancette (Mesocons for Rice '08)
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To: martin_fierro
Do you think these are the chunks that are showing up in the water in Iowa?

Flesh Chunks Found in Iowa Water Lines

52 posted on 04/27/2005 1:07:04 PM PDT by b4its2late (Junk is something you've kept for years and throw away three weeks before you need it.)
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