Cane toads or Bufo marinus as seen in the appendix Bufo meaning toad and Marunis meaning marine, were being used successfully in the Caribbean islands and in Hawaii to combat the cane beetle, a pest of sugar cane crops. After good reviews from overseas, Hawaii shipped a box of toads to Gordonvale, just south of Cairns. These were held in captivity for a while and then they were released into the sugar cane fields of the tropic north. It was later discovered that the toads can't jump very high so they did not eat the cane beetles which stayed up on the upper stalks of the cane plants. At the time of year when the beetle's larvae were emerging from the ground, no toads were about. So the cane toad, as it came to be known, had no impact on the cane …show more content…
But there were only 102 of them so nobody gave any thought to catching them up again and disposing of them. The toads were on their own and they proved to be very hardy survivors. They turned out to be a lot more than they bargained for and it didn't take long to find out how well the toads would do in their new Australian home. All stages of a toad's life are poisonous so they have no natural predators to keep their numbers in check. These toads not only eat the food normally available to Australian frogs, there is growing anecdotal evidence that they eat frogs as well. Captive cane toads will eat everything from dog food to mice and they keep growing until they reach 25cm in length and over 2 kilos. The species lives in a wide variety of habitats, but is restricted mainly by the availability of water, since water is a vital element in the breeding cycle. However, toads can survive near very small pools, or steams in arid regions. During the dry or cold seasons, they remain inactive in shallow ground excavations beneath ground cover. Description Cane toads are very large and heavily built amphibians (up to 15 cm long) with warty