Exploding Toad Update -- Experts question eyewitness accounts

Nature reports:

A mystery of exploding toads has turned many people into armchair zoologists this week. Amphibians in a previously obscure German pond have reportedly been blowing up in their thousands, leaving a grisly trail of innards stretching several feet in their wake - and observers desperately trying to work out why.

The bizarre phenomenon has prompted a full-scale environmental investigation of the pond by researchers at the nearby Institute for Hygiene and Environment in Hamburg. The list of suspected culprits has grown to include bacteria, fungi, ozone and vehicle exhausts; or simply the pecking of hungry birds.

In the wake of the confusion, reports have also emerged of toads meeting a similarly gruesome fate in Denmark.

Despite much puzzling, experts have yet to find any reason for the amphibians to balloon to three times their size before literally exploding, as eyewitnesses to the unfortunate incidents have claimed.

Experts think that all that happened was that birds attacked the toads and did a messy job of eating them. They question eyewitness accounts that say the toads actually exploded.

"I really think someone needs to go back and check the primary source," comments Barry Clarke, a herpetologist at the Natural History Museum in London. "I've learnt never to say with animals that anything is impossible. But the idea of exploding toads - well let's face it, it's pythonesque."

That's right, who ya gonna believe -- your lyin' eyes or the experts?

Read about it here.

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