Question

Why have cane toads been very successful in Australia?

Answer 1

The toxic cane toad introduced to Australia in the 1930s is causing ripples through the ecosystem in ways rarely seen when invasive species spread. The toads arrived in 1935 from the Amazon as an experiment to control a beetle that devastated sugar cane crops. But the initial 102 young toads quickly multiplied until there were hundreds of millions, stretching from coast-to-coast. In places, they form seething masses of up to 2000 toads per hectare. They have even evolved to become better invaders by growing longer legs and being more aggressive, driving some species to extinction in local areas.The toads wiped out about half of the water monitor population within five years. That had a knock-on effect on crimson finches: the proportion of surviving fledglings jumped from 55 per cent to 81 per cent.