Ah, Australians. First they introduced cane toads to hunt the greyback cane beetle pests - but the toads turned out to be a much bigger pest and their toxic kill many native predators and farm animals.
Now, there's a proposal to control the cane toad population by introducing yet another species to battle it: meat-eating ants.
Omnivorous meat ants are native to Australia and reportedly nests in groups of more than 60,000. Professor Rick Shine said that meat ants attack and eat toads. "The ants are moving through these open areas, scavenging for dead insects and so on. If they encounter a baby toads it obviously seems like an appropriate lunch and jump on it. "
What could go wrong? Link [National Geographic Video]
Newest 5 Comments
i live in Australia and meat ants are native but till recently people have not noticed that they are eating the toads...oh and meat rule cause they are agressive lil buggas and attack the shit out of anything that comes near them
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The sharks were replaced with crocodiles equipped with rocket propelled grenades.
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So they ruled out sharks with lasers?
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Even if these ants are native to the area, won't this massive food supply upset some sort of ecological equilibrium?
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That's a joke right? Where is the link to the article? I grew up in Australia & remember when I was a child that catching & freezing cane toads was all the rage.
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