Posted on 04/23/2005 8:45:05 PM PDT by 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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Saran wrap is strong enough to hold a 150 pound man ten foot in the air saran wrapped to a tree.
Nothing much to tell except that I was out hiking, picked up a tail, and got ticked.
Ambushed the jerk, and saran wrapped him to a tree after a short struggle.
(Prior to this, saran wrap was merely used to secure the victim to an object, not suspend them.)
Years after the incident, was out camping, and the kids at the next campsight, after speaking to me, saran wrapped one of their own to a nearby pole.
(And yes, Robby deserved to be stuck to the telephone pole like that!)
"(And yes, Robby deserved to be stuck to the telephone pole like that!)"
Judge: " I believe your story. You are free to go. Your bail bond is exonerated!!"
Well, my brother and I tried to cut down a tree by blowing it up.
That the neighbor's spoiled brat creep was in the tree screaming like a little girl was a coincidence.
What were you using to blow it up? I have to hand you kudos for ingenuity on the Saran wrap gig.
First it was a bunch of m-80's with the fuses replaced with estes model rocket igniters.
Then it was a bunch of what we called ashcans but everyone else called quarter sticks.
We succeeded in peeling off the bark and digging in about two inches before mom called us home for supper.
MRE heater stuff mixed with water produces heat and hydrogen (you know, lightest element, usually in gasseous form, tends to be explosive when combined with oxygen....)
Normal use in an open container causes the free hydrogen to dissapate in the atmosphere with no non-salubrious manifestations. However, combine the MRE heater crystals with water in a closed container and soon the heat of the reaction will cause the hydrogen from the reaction to, um, well... (you get the picture.)
(For further comments on the effects of this reaction when confined inside a dumpster, you might want to consult Darksheare....)
I learn something new every day at FR.Better living thru chemistry.
Is that Ted Kennedy?
Sounds to me like they got into some backing soda. It's a great way to kill roaches, why not frogs? They eat it and explode since they can't pass gas.
this happens to me every Thanksgiving day.
ping
Ouch! Lay off the dark meat and whatever Aunt Bertha puts in the giblet gravy.
"And the dumbest things take place in Romania."
http://mapage.noos.fr/martialro/ozone/video.html
Actually it's far worse...
http://www.funpic.hu/swf/numanuma.html
"It's a real puzzle," agreed Janne Kloepper from the Hamburg Institute for Hygiene and the Environment, adding: "If this keeps up, there will be no toads left in Hamburg.". ER?
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