Monster toad found in Australia

A cane toad the size of a small dog has been captures in the Australian tropical city of Darwin, the largest ever recorded in the country's remote Northern Territoty. Green group FrogWatch said the monster male was 20.5cm long and weighed 861 gms.

"The biggest toads are usually females but this one was a rampant male", said FrogWatch's Graeme Sawyer, who organizes regular excursions to trap and destroy the feral pests blamed for destroying native Australian wildlife. The cane toad, whose scientific name is Bufo marinus, was introduced from South America in the 1930s to control another pest-beetles that were ravaging the sugar cane fields of the tropical northern coasts.

  (The Hindu, 28th  March , 2007)