Cane Toads: An Unnatural History (1988) | Hacker News Reader

Cane Toads: An Unnatural History (1988)

cinemasojourns.com

39 pointsjjgreen40 comments

"Cane Toads: An Unnatural History" is an outstanding documentary film, and is worth watching even if the topic of invasive toads doesn't catch your immediate interest.

This film's approach to presenting the interaction between man and toad inspired Hamilton Morris, who used it as a conceptual guide when producing his own documentary series. Hamilton interviewed director Mark Lewis in podcast #72.

You can find a full copy of "Cane Toads" on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkxwrpJg5W0

There is another similar invasive story in Australia to do with the prickly pear, introduced with the First Fleet, later spread uncontrollably across the country and was subsequently conquered using the Cactoblastis Moth.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prickly_pears_in_Australia

These are some of the many reasons why Australia now has very stringent biosecurity laws.

A few native birds have developed novel strategies for dealing with them. The jabiru will repreatedly drag them through water until they've released all their poison before consuming them, and the native magpie has learned to flip them on their backs and eat them through their stomachs.

I live in Brisbane, QLD and I have seen one frog in the last 8 years. It's all cane toads now.

Apparently the population of one species of monitor lizard has fallen by 90% due to cane toads spreading into their habitat.

[1] Monitor lizards trained not to eat toxic cane toads https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-35235518

You can buy a cane toad leather hat with croc teeth from famous Aussie made Jacaru hat brand.

https://jacaru.com/products/1017-outback?variant=29981911941...

for future archeologists wondering about the comments: the post title has been changed to "Cane Toads: An Unnatural History" but it was originally "What’s Your Favorite Invasive Species?"

Yes—the thread was just a shallow/generic* list, which doesn't do justice to the interesting article, so we changed the title to that of the documentary which the article is mostly about. I've swept those earlier comments under the rug (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42128515) so we can focus on cane toads now!

* a good HN thread is mostly about specifics, not generics: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

Ha, not thought that it might be mistaken for an "Ask HN".

Gribbit.

Great doco.

There's a lot of new lore since the doco, and probably some that's been removed... was that guy really getting high by boiling them?

You can now get cane toad tadpole pheromone lures - https://watergum.org/tadpoletrapping/

> cane toad tadpoles are instinctively drawn to and consume other cane toad eggs <> attraction is driven by a specific pheromone released by the eggs

How university ethic committees kill a cane toad tadpole -

> Current best practice is the stepped hypothermia which involves putting your catch in a container in the fridge, followed by the freezer (8 hours in each will do for tadpoles)

There is some delusional thinking going on there I'll leave to reader.

[edit] Their trap is a cunt to set-up. Great MVP but someone needs to design a floating trap or something.... the sides of a dam are not a consistent gentle slop. A great TikTok/Maker challenge.

Set-up here - https://imgur.com/a/IVnOMPm

[stub for offtopicness]

Homo Sapiens of course, everywhere but a few places in Africa. We’re kind of the ultimate invasive species. We have walked on the Moon.

Almost all living humans are colonizers or illegal immigrants if you go back far enough.

I think you’ll find both concepts, at least in widespread use, are fairly novel concepts. Many would define colonization as a financial institution, for instance, not merely migration or displacement/integration. The legalization of immigration is generally a 19th (and certainly 20th) century innovation, as it requires overcoming significant technological barriers associated with identification and centralized bureaucracy.

For instance, my ancestors have lived on this continent for almost exactly 400 years. Only one of them came here legally, and I don’t think any came here illegally.

Himalayan basalm is all over the place by rivers in the U.K… its invasive and difficult to remove because in quite a bizarre and cool fashion, when it’s ready to disperse seeds, it’s seed pod explodes from actually quite gentle physical contact.

https://youtu.be/XUOEHDRLDFk?si=6ZyxKQR-SxhZcMWt

Kalanchoe delagoensis, the chandelier plant. It's nice to look at, tough, supremely prolific, and inedible. A superior and extremely sensible form of life. Give it a few million years, and it's going to take over. (Jointly with Kudzu and Japanese Knotweed.)

Favourite: rabbits. What did the Romans ever do for us?

Least favourite:

American grey squirrel in the UK killed off most of the UK's red squirrels via squirrelpox.

And Green Parakeets are established in quite a few areas of the UK as well.

Horses in the US, which fit into the ecological niche of the equidae which died out during the Quaternary extinction event.

>"What’s Your Favorite Invasive Species?"

Homo sapiens! Their only natural enemy is themselves.

Mine is Rosa rugosa.

The mature fruits tastes great as jam, and the seeds is an excellent itching powder!

Argentinean ant

Favorite: earthworms

Least favorite: spotted knapweed

Earthworms are invasive?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthworms_as_invasive_speci...

TIL. Thank you!

Mine is Dioscorea bulbifera

Are air-potatoes an invasive species in the US of A?

Yes, in Florida

Kudzu

Privet. Freakin' privet. I have spent countless hours trying to eradicate the descendants of a privet hedge that my great grandfather planted a hundred years ago; they've been taking over the nearby forest.

Talk about generational trauma.

Clover

[flagged]

We should define "invasive species" to mean "species which gets transported to another ecosystem via means beyond its control or natural behavior" and therefore exclude humans. The Homo genus evolved to be highly migratory and climate-adaptable compared to almost all other mammals, and certainly compared to other primates. Crossing into Eurasia was a natural behavior for Homo sapiens, and something we had in common with erectus, though of course we were much more successful.

There is a huge biological distinction between human migration as a natural behavior of the human animal, versus a toad which is deliberately introduced into a distant ecosystem via human intervention, or a spider which accidentally hitches a ride on a piece of driftwood and populates a distant island.

> We should define "invasive species" to mean "species which gets transported to another ecosystem via means beyond its control or natural behavior" and therefore exclude humans.

Why?

And what is the fixed reference point that defines "natural" behavior in contrast to what I would assume you would call "unnatural"? Isn't everything that happens within the constraints of the earth's ecosystem by definition "natural"?

> or a spider which accidentally hitches a ride on a piece of driftwood and populates a distant island.

How and why is that different? If conditions in the natural ecosystem result in the spider ending up in the new island, and its extant traits prove to be a good match to the ecosystem there, resulting in it thriving and reproducing extensively, how is that more like the toad and than the human?

It seems like you are drawing distinctions based on the particular normative ideas that you hold, which are in turn both antropocentric at the macro level, and subjective to you specifically at the micro. I'm not sure this normative framework is a good analytical model for understanding objective reality.

Favorites non-native invasive species? I have to say human beings. Followed by domestic dogs.

FWIW, when researching Virginia Creeper trying to kill my trees, I learned that Virginia Creeper isn't invasive because it is native, so apparently to be considered an invasive plant, it can't be native.

https://www.fs.usda.gov/wildflowers/invasives/index.shtml

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenocissus_quinquefolia

And the definition of native seems to be: it spread there through natural processes, which often means predating the development of agriculture around 11,000 B.C.

"Purple loostrife" (Lythrum salicaria) (in Ontario, Canada)

It is certainly pretty - but I hate it because during college, I had a landscaping business with a friend where we had to remove it from a swamp...

Rose-ringed parakeet (Psittacula krameri) in Portugal, my home country. It's very cute and super resilient, no fear of getting endangered.

For some definition of favorite, I would go with rabbits.

They also became invasive in Australia. Myxomatosis was imtroduced to control them.

Most favorite : Cuckoo Pint

Least favorite : Japanese Stiltgrass

European Starling - love their plumage and the massive flocks they form in fall.

Pretty much every tree in San Diego. Kate Sessions basically reshaped the entire ecosystem and it turned out pretty good?

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