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Toad Day Out is a pest control event which takes place in Queensland, Australia on the 29 March of each year. Its focus is to reduce the population of the invasive cane toad. The toads are caught live and unharmed. [1] The day was originally advocated by politician Shane Knuth. [1] Toads are captured and taken to be humanely destroyed.
Bufagin is a toxic steroid C 24 H 34 O 5 [3] obtained from toad's milk, the poisonous secretion of a skin gland on the back of the neck of a large toad (Rhinella marina, synonym Bufo marinus, the cane toad). The toad produces this secretion when it is injured, scared or provoked.
The conservation of existing natural enemies in an environment is the third method of biological pest control. [29] Natural enemies are already adapted to the habitat and to the target pest, and their conservation can be simple and cost-effective, as when nectar-producing crop plants are grown in the borders of rice fields.
The cane toad is estimated to have a critical thermal maximum of 40–42 °C (104–108 °F) and a minimum of around 10–15 °C (50–59 °F). [43] The ranges can change due to adaptation to the local environment. [44] Cane toads from some populations can adjust their thermal tolerance within a few hours of encountering low temperatures. [45]
A young cane toad. The cane toad in Australia is regarded as an exemplary case of an invasive species.Australia's relative isolation prior to European colonisation and the Industrial Revolution, both of which dramatically increased traffic and import of novel species, allowed development of a complex, interdepending system of ecology, but one which provided no natural predators for many of the ...
The Cane toad has large poison glands, and adults and tadpoles are highly toxic to most animals if ingested. Because of its voracious appetite, the Cane toad has been introduced to many regions of the Pacific and the Caribbean islands as a method of agricultural pest control , notably in the case of Australia in 1935, and derives its common ...
Dermolepida albohirtum, the cane beetle, is a native Australian beetle and a pest of sugarcane.Adult beetles eat the leaves of sugarcane, but greater damage is done by their larvae hatching underground and eating the roots, which either kills or stunts the growth of the plant. [1]
Meat ants are able to kill poisonous cane toads, an introduced pest, as the toxins exuded by the toad, usually lethal against its predators, do not affect the meat ants. [138] Due to this, scientists in Australia have considered using meat ants as a form of pest control to reduce the cane toad population. [ 139 ]