Exploding toads baffle experts

Australian Broadcasting ^ | 2005-04-24 | AFP

[Lessismore]

Hundreds of toads have met an unexplained, explosive demise in Germany in recent days, it was reported on Saturday.

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.

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 2:00am and 3:00am, 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.

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[woofie]

Coming soon to a theatre near you

[drlevy88]

ribbi--BOOM!

[LibFreeOrDie]

Posted here earlier:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1389859/posts

[FReepaholic]

Bad case of swamp gas.

[org.whodat]

ribbi--BOOM!

And the answer is What happens to a toad when he has gas and can't fart?????

[Mongeaux]

The weirdest and sickest things always happen in either Germany or Florida.

[Bouchart]

Wannabe terrorist toads?

[woofie]

[time4good]

AAGGG - ROTFLMBO!!!!!!!!

[politicalwit]

"Wannabe terrorist toads?"

TSA nightmare!!!!!

When Terror Toads Attack!!

[stboz]

You don't suppose somebody has got a hold on one those new-fangled energy-beam weapons......

[harrowup]

Bad case of swamp gas.

Real bad.

[Tom602]

Sort of like mother natures little bottle rockets?

[RichInOC]

WHAT HAPPEN?

[SamAdams76]

Is this what happened to Michael Moore on election night?

[Fiddlstix]

Did the toads recently convert to islam? Have they now become suicide bomber toads?
Inquiring minds want to know.

[Kay Syrah]

bufotine

[woofie]

"Its a beautiful evening,lets sit on the porch tonight Mother an watch the toads explode"

[harrowup]

Thanks; I really needed that to make my day...I knew when I read this story that there was some guy it reminded me of....I have it copied for fun on Monday.