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Cane toads leg it across Australia

Pests are evolving longer legs to speed their invasion.

Need to get somewhere fast? Growing longer legs is the cane toad's answer. The amphibian pest is accelerating its march across the Australian landscape, leaving a trail of ecological devastation.

Read the story here.

Posted by Nicola Jones on February 15, 2006
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So much for the Intelligent Design nonsense. Congatulations, Charles Darwin!

Posted by: Sam Bartlett | February 15, 2006 07:26 PM

Although the paper reveals an interesting phenomenon, I would argue that the selection the authors observe is more akin to selective breeding of racehorses than evolution per se. Also, the statistics presented are blatantly overreaching. The only relationship that shows a high correlation is the one that they are trying to explain (Fig. 1d). Again, the concept is extremely interesting, but the authors have not convinced me that the effect is real.

Posted by: Michael L. Quillin | February 16, 2006 04:06 PM

Frog's legs are a delicacy. Perhaps the legs of these toads could be made tasty as well. Creation of a food market for them might help serve as a control.

Posted by: Jan Brown | February 16, 2006 04:24 PM

Where's the open season on cane toads? Every able-bodied Australian should be encouraged to carry a physical weapon with them nearly all the time, which would be suitable for killing cane toads. I don't know what this would be, but if you see a cane toad, you'd better kill it. Kill as many as you can when you have time and see them. Bored teenagers should be encouraged to go kill more cane toads, as opposed to taking drugs or robbing people. If someone says "Honey, I'm tired of sitting around here right now. I'm gonna go out and kill me some cane toads," he/she should be praised and supported. In a broad sense it would help if Australia ended its racism against the native peoples and their cultures: the Aborigines did not bring cane toads with them 50,000 years ago.

Posted by: Jean SmilingCoyote | February 21, 2006 04:45 PM

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