The Cane Toad in Australia

toads are large heavily-built amphibians with dry, warty skin. They have a bony head and over their eyes are bony ridges that meet above the nose. They sit upright and move in short rapid hops. Their hind feet have leathery webbing between the toes and their front feet are unwebbed. Adult cane toads have large swellings - the parotoid glands - on each shoulder behind the eardrum. Cane toads may be grey, yellowish, olive-brown or reddish-brown, and their bellies are pale with dark mottling. Average-sized adults are ten to fifteen centimetres long. The largest female measured in Queensland was twenty-four centimetres long and weighed one point three kilograms. Male cane toads are smaller and wartier than females. During the breeding season males develop dark lumps (nuptial pads) on their first two fingers; these help them cling to a female while mating. Their mating call is a long loud purring trill. Cane toad spawn is exclusive in Australia. It is laid in long strings of transparent jelly enclosing double rows of black eggs. The spawn tangles in dense dark masses around water plants, and hangs in ropy strands if picked up. Paragraph C The natural range of cane toads extends from the southern United States to tropical…