Southern Toads

Cane toads, Cane toads earned their bad reputation shortly after being released into the Australian ecology in 1935. They were brought their in order to control the cane beetle population. They turned out to be failures at controlling beetles, but remarkably successful at reproducing and spreading themselves. Cane toads forage at night in a wide variety of habitats. The toad is a ground-dwelling predator, primarily eating terrestrial and aquatic insects and snails.

than usually destroy the environment they are introduced to. Take the cane toad for example; this is an invasive species problem that is currently occurring in the United States. The cane toad (Rhinella marina), is a species that is native to South America, Central America, Mexico, and southwestern Texas. The cane toad began to become introduced in Florida, Hawaii, and even Louisiana. Originally, they were let out around sugar cane plantations in order to eliminate pests that ate the cane. Eventually they “escaped” and people began to keep them as pets and in their backyards. The cane toad preys on and can sometimes compete with native species due to having similar niches. The cane toad also secretes a toxic chemical from its skin, which is extremely poisonous for common household pets, including dogs, cats and birds (Hardman).

The toads are known for being in the east coast region of America. These places are known for their loose grainy soil the toads can dig in. Eastern Spadefoot toads like to live in semi-arid places with sandy soil for the toads to dig in using its spades. The toads do so to keep themselves from drying out.

Florida, a treasure trove of many, many species of animals and diverse wildlife. How many of those, ‘Florida’ species are actually native to Florida though? If you walk outside you will probably see lizards everywhere, you know, the brown ones. Well, what if I told you, that they are not actually native to Florida? Those lizards are called Brown Anoles, and they are actually from Cuba and the Bahamas. This is just one example of the many invasive species, which compete with Florida’s native species for food, resources and territories everyday. A few more examples of invasive species that are harmful to our wildlife are the Cuban tree frog, which is a threat to not only other frogs but toads and lizards as well, the Burmese python, which is invading the everglades, and the air potato, which is slowly creeping its way up through Florida, tree to tree.

Texas Horned Lizards (P. cornutum) are currently listed as a threated species in Texas and Oklahoma. Texas Horned Lizard decline has been documented to start in the 1960’s, and is attributed to many things such as the invasion of red fire ants, habitat loss, urbanization, and the increased use of insecticides (Donaldson, Price, and Morse, 1994). These lizards inhabit arid to semi-arid environments and are known to primarily eat harvester ants. However, other invertebrates have been noted such as spiders, crickets, and beetles (Montanucci, 1989). The Horned Lizards dependence on Harvester ants has already been brought to question when it was shown that habitat influences population distribution and not harvester ant availability (Whiting,

The article explains that several measures were proposed to reduce the cane toad population, and provides three reasons of support. However, the professor explains that it would not be easy to get rid off the cane toad population and several measures taken, but that were unsuccessful, and refutes each of the author’s reasons.

First of all, the reading states that construct a fence can prevent the advance toads from leaving to other parts of Australia. However, the lecture disagrees with the reading by insisting that the fence can block some toads but not all of them. Because there are

In the reading passage, it concentrates on how to stop the spread of the cane toad in Australia, and the lecturer focuses on the same issue. However, the lecturer does not believe these measures could be effective, which raises doubt what the reading part asserts. The lecturer also provides some evidence to back her point of view.

First, using the national fences is the first way that the passage mentioned. In contrast, the lecturer said that this ideas is not going be effective, because the can toad s spread by the water streams (rivers or streams). So, flowing water could carry some eggs and small cane toads through the fence to some where els and they would start to reproduce there.

The study was done by Yale University and compared the proportions of frog sexes between 21 suburban ponds and isolated ponds in southwestern Connecticut. Its findings were published in the latest issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The chest cartilage of toads is different also. Toads tend to lay eggs in long chains. There are only two native toads in Michigan, which are The Eastern American Toad and The Fowler's Toad, they are mostly the same ,but different in shape and color. The Eastern toad is mostly brownish skin is very warty. Short, but large and muscular hind legs allow it to move more easily through woodlands and backyards. Throat and belly white speckled with black. Found common statewide. The Eastern American Toad is similar to The American Toad, but throat and belly is usually plain colored and has more warts, three or more in each dark spot on the back. Two to thirtytwo inches long. Found in western and southern Lower Peninsula. Many of toads and frogs population has dropped over time and the reason behind this is the Amphibian Decline. Many species have lost most of their population for many reasons like climate change, small changes in temperature and moisture,changes in global weather pattern and many trees getting cut down. People could change that in many ways, by keeping the place clean, keeping factories away from nature, less cutting trees and treating nature in a better way possible.

The olympic village effect is an example of evolution and a very fast one at that. The animal at fault is the Cane Toads originally introduced in Australia to get rid of pest. It quickly grew out of control. To the point where the now invasive species is the dominant species even among the indigenous. It is growing, getting stronger, and faster by the generation. Due to it not having any predators to keep the numbers at bay and the lush vegetation and amount of food it normally wouldn't have in its original environment. It has constantly been studied and it has been rapidly been evolving because the stronger and faster will have migrated further and faster, this leads to the elites breeding repeatedly and so on and so forth. This domino effect

Cane toads were introduced to Australia from Hawaii in June 1935 in an attempt to control the Frenchi beetle and the native grey backed cane beetle, as the cane growers in Queensland were concerned about crop damage due to the beetles.

In this set of materials, the reading passage states several attempts to stop the spreading of cane toad in Australia and provides three reasons od support. While in the listening, the professor opposes the text book and says that the attempts are unsuccessful and may cause environmental damage. She also refutes each of the author’s reasons.

Frogs, toads, caecilians, and salamanders are the members of the class Amphibian (amphi- meaning “on both sides” and bios- meaning “life”). These members always require water for reproduction. Most Amphibians undergo metamorphosis, which is a usually degenerative pathological change in the structure of a particular body tissue. And, in the case of Amphibians, it is the changing of a tadpole into