http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/200504/r45562_118414.jpghttp://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200504/s1352292.htm
"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. "
― Hari A$hur$t (Toaster), Monday, 25 April 2005 17:28 (twenty years ago)
dude if the rest of that shit in "the birds" comes true i'm moving to the moon
― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Monday, 25 April 2005 17:29 (twenty years ago)
"German explosions: could they hold the answer to the cane toad problem?"
― Hari A$hur$t (Toaster), Monday, 25 April 2005 17:31 (twenty years ago)
I really want to laugh at this, this is the kind of shit I laugh at, but I can't shake the feeling that whatever is the cause of this is related to something really extremely horrible.
― nickalicious (nickalicious), Monday, 25 April 2005 17:36 (twenty years ago)
So long as you think it's really scary crows as the article alludes to then it's ok.
xpost
― Hari A$hur$t (Toaster), Monday, 25 April 2005 17:37 (twenty years ago)
the frogs have mutated so that they're now like certain plants and fungi and reproduce by exploding and sending their seed spores everywhere.
― latebloomer: But when the monkey die, people gonna cry. (latebloomer), Monday, 25 April 2005 19:22 (twenty years ago)
Man, I just searched through 17 pages of a Google image search for Big Trouble in Little China looking for the appropriate picture. No dice.
― A / F#m / Bm / D (Lynskey), Monday, 25 April 2005 19:52 (twenty years ago)
At least it's not happening to kittens.Wasn't some Mediterranean European country feeding really large catfish with fetal kittens??
I think the thread was "Kitten Outrage"
― donut debonair (donut), Monday, 25 April 2005 19:55 (twenty years ago)
when 2012 comes, all the exploded toads will reconstitute and form a gigantic Warner Bros. dancing frog which will dance around NYC, crushing buildings and ushering in the apocalypse.
― latebloomer: But when the monkey die, people gonna cry. (latebloomer), Monday, 25 April 2005 20:20 (twenty years ago)
Reminds me of Ang Lee's The Hulk.It reminds me of a film called The Reflecting Skin - the first line of dialogue, I think, is: "you've been exploding frogs again".
― caitlin (caitlin), Monday, 25 April 2005 20:43 (twenty years ago)
Now all we need is for someone to ship this pond of death to Queensland! BOOM! canetoad goo everywhere!
― Trayce (trayce), Tuesday, 26 April 2005 00:57 (twenty years ago)