ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, September 21, 1996 TAG: 9609230039
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A8 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: MIAMI
SOURCE: TOM WELLS ASSOCIATED PRESS
THIS TOXIC MONSTER, originally from South America, now calls the United States home, thanks to an agricultural experiment gone awry.
In one of those examples of man foolishly messing with nature, a huge South American toad was let loose in Florida and other parts of the world earlier this century to try to control sugar cane pests.
Big mistake.
The Bufo marinus, or marine toad, can grow to 12 inches or more and weigh more than 3 pounds. It's overrunning part of Australia. It's scaring tourists in the Caribbean. And occasionally it's killing dogs in Florida - and Virginia - with a poison so potent that the family pets die in a matter of minutes.
``Someone got this wild idea it would increase sugar cane production. It didn't,'' said University of Miami biologist Jay Savage. ``You'd have to have bumper-to-bumper toads to increase a crop.''
``Now they've become a pest themselves,'' Savage said.
In June a foot-long, three-pound Bufo toad disappeared from its 4-foot cage at a biology teacher's home in Albermarle County in Virginia. The toad was not seen again until Aug. 24 when it caused the death of a German shepherd dog that had picked it up in its mouth. The dog's owner tossed the toad over his backyard fence, and it was not seen again until Sept. 12, when it was captured with the aid of a bucket.
Bufo marinus resembles Jabba the Hutt of ``Star Wars,'' with deeply pitted, swollen glands behind each eye, extending down the back. The glands contain a milky white toxin that the toad secretes when threatened. Its call sounds like a tractor in the distance.
Some people try to use the poison of the toad and its cousins as an aphrodisiac and a hallucinogen. The substance was sold up until last year in the United States but is now banned.
``Four New York men purchased it, thinking it was an oral aphrodisiac. They died,'' said Dr. Rossanne Philen, an epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. The substance was supposed to be rubbed on the genitals.
In Florida, ``there are a few dogs killed every year. Cats are usually smarter. When they see something that big, they leave it alone,'' Savage said. ``If a dog gets a good shot of the toxin, it can kill it. The first sign is that the dog starts frothing at the mouth.''
Bufo marinus is native to Latin America from Brazil to Mexico. It was introduced into Puerto Rico in the 1920s, into Hawaii, the Philippines and Australia in the 1930s, and South Florida in the 1940s, Savage said. It has spread to southern Texas, but cold winters keep it out of the rest of the United States.
In Queensland, Australia, the toads have become so numerous that they are poisoning ranchland water holes when they get into ponds and die, Savage said. Scientists there are testing a virus that seems to kill the toads.
Staff writer Jon Cawley contributed to this story.
LENGTH: Medium: 59 linesby CNB