Australia

Audible Click said:
Great article that led me to look up information on the Bogong Moths and why indigenous Australians were eating them. (I was thinking small moths and, boy, was I wrong!)
Link with pictures: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogong_moth

<li'l snip>

Please keep up the good work Akhenaten!
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Yes Ma'am. Not only will I keep it up, I'll even do it retrospectively for you.


Akhenaten said:
[qimg]http://www.yvonneclaireadams.com/HostedStuff/Bogong1.jpg[/qimg]​



Bogong Moths belong to the Family Noctuidae and are well known in south-eastern Australia for their mass migration in spring. In some years, they have descended upon cities such as Sydney and Canberra in their thousands, causing disruption around outdoor sports grounds and to air-conditioning plants.

The Bogong Moth is native to Australia and was first described from Mount Bogong in southern New South Wales. The establishment of a tiny new state in the bottom part of New South Wales, known as Victoria, has resulted in Mount Bogong now being the highest mountain in that state.

Native Australians had a good knowledge and understanding of the habits of the Bogong Moth. They roasted the highly nutritious moths in hot ashes and mashed the bodies to make 'moth meat', which is said to have a nutty taste. The mountain caves were well known to the Aboriginal people, who used the moths as an important source of protein.

The adult moths are also important in the diet of the Mountain Pygmy Possum (Burramy).

Caterpillars of the Bogong Moth are known as black cutworms and are considered an agricultural pest, causing significant damage to crops.


[qimg]http://www.yvonneclaireadams.com/HostedStuff/Bogong2.jpg[/qimg]​



Bogong Mouths are found pretty much everywhere in southern Australia, including Tasmania. They occasionally make it as far as New Zealand and Norfolk Island, and I've even heard tell that they've been found in Antarctica (dead as, but still . . .)

They are equally at home in urban areas, forests and woodlands. Truth is, they don't seem to care where they are, and that can make them a bit of a pest.

During winter, Bogongs feed inland (as larvae) on seedlings of wide-leafed plants in an area ranging from the Darling Downs in Queensland, the western slopes and plains of New South Wales and the drier inland regions of Victoria and South Australia.

As the weather begins to warm up they pack on the weight and prepare to migrate. The people of Canberra shudder as they also prepare for the migration.

During spring, the Bogongs fly south to south-eastwards, to caves in the Snowy Mountains and the Victorian Alps, where they remain inactive (aestivation) throughout the summer months. They are sometimes blown towards the coast by westerly winds and may enter houses as they are attracted to light. Over summer, adults congregate in rock crevices in massive numbers and remain dormant, living off their fat reserves.


[qimg]http://www.yvonneclaireadams.com/HostedStuff/Bogong3.jpg[/qimg]
Aestivation in the High Country​



In autumn they make the return journey since the larvae (the aforementined cutworms) can't tolerate cold conditions. Again, the people of Canberra joyfully anticipate this wonderful event. Not.

Bogongs fly at night and, attracted to lights, can cause problems for floodlit buildings by blocking air-conditioning ducts and setting off alarms.

There are numerous reports of large groups of bogong moths causing 'inconvenience' to the naked apes, including:

In 1865, bogong moths invaded a church in Sydney, causing a service to be abandoned.

In Canberra in the mid-1970s, bogong moths invaded new, brightly lit buildings in huge numbers, causing lifts to fail.

In 1988, vast numbers of moths caused havoc at the newly completed permanent Parliament House and engineers had to reduce lighting and redesign air intakes.​


[qimg]http://www.yvonneclaireadams.com/HostedStuff/Bogong4.jpg[/qimg]
Lotsa moths at Perisher/Smiggins​



Recently concern has mounted about arsenic levels in the Bogong Moths. The arsenic is present at low levels in the soil of their larval pasturelands and is stored in the body of the adult moth. When the moths die off in their caves, the arsenic leaches from their bodies into the local soil. The arsenic becomes concentrated because of the build-up of dead moths on the floor of the cave over many years. The arsenic could potentially adversely affect their predators, including the Mountain Pygmy Possum, but this has not yet been fully demonstrated.


[qimg]http://www.yvonneclaireadams.com/HostedStuff/Bogong5.jpg[/qimg]
Needless to say . . . ​


Technical Specifications

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthwollipoda Arthropoda (damn you, Freud!)
Subphylum: Uniramia
Class: Insecta
Order: Lepidoptera
Superfamily: Noctuoidea
Family: Noctuidae
Subfamily: Noctuinae
Genus: Agrotis
Species: infusa​



Sources:

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I (L) sss
 
Akhenaten said:
:)

All of the online reviews indicate that it's a terrific read, and it's now on my wish list.

Any chance of some short quotes or a paraphrase for us? A bit about Ern Malley would be cool, if you've a mind to do it for us.


Cheers, Mate.
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Mine too now I've had a heads up. Also wouldn't mind hearing some more about it though.
 
Akhenaten said:
We hit a 'roo at Uriarra Crossing once. Roo, 1 - Camira, nil.

I was saddened to read about what happened in the fires, and I hope enough lessons have been learned to avoid a recurrence.
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The Christmas fires and the subsequent Canberra fires literally rewrote the book on bushfires. Things happened during those weeks that were considered theoretically impossible......but they happened

Within two years a comprehensive overhaul of buidling codes in bushfire sensitve areas had been released. Many rural councils were extremely aggressive in maintaining the standards set out

In 2006 the Federal Government announced the creation of a new sub section of the CSIRO who's sole purpose was to eat breath and sleep bushfires, and to try and understand the new rules we seem to have suddenly beeb confronted with in our cruel but wonderful land
 
I'm a sixteen-year-old girl named Jessica and my favourite colour is pink. I like sailing and showing 'grown-ups' how to overcome their narrow-minded preconceptions with grace and good humour.


:)
 
Invasive Species - Part 1


The Cane Toad (Bufo marinus)​



Cane toads are native to South and Central America. They are extremely hardy animals and voracious predators of insects and other small prey. These qualities led to their introduction into Australia as a means of controlling pests threatening the sugar cane industry in 1935, before the use of agricultural chemicals became widespread.

Oops.

Cane Toads are considered a pest in Australia because they:

  • poison pets and injure humans with their toxins

  • poison many native animals whose diet includes frogs, tadpoles and frogs' eggs

  • eat large numbers of honey bees, creating a management problem for bee-keepers

  • prey on native fauna

  • compete for food with vertebrate insectivores such as small skinks (lizards)

  • may carry diseases that are can be transmitted to native frogs and fishes

Identification

Queenslanders Cane Toads are large, heavily-built amphibians with dry warty skin. They have a bony head and their eyes are set beneath bony ridges that meet above the nose. Their hind feet have leathery webbing between the toes while the front feet are unwebbed. Adult Cane Toads have large swellings (the parotoid glands) on each shoulder behind the eardrum.


CaneToad2.jpg

The Cane Toad (Bufo marinus)​


Cane Toads may be grey, yellowish, olive-brown or reddish-brown, and their bellies are pale with dark mottling. Average-sized adults are 10-15 cm (4-6") long, while the largest female measured in Queensland was 24 cm (9½")long and weighed 1.3 kg (3 lb). Male Cane Toads are smaller and wartier than females. During the breeding season males develop dark lumps (nuptial pads) on their first two fingers which help them cling to a female while mating. Their mating call is a long loud purring trill.

Young Cane Toads have a smooth dark skin with darker blotches and bars, and lack conspicuous parotoid glands. They can be distinguished from some native Australian frogs because they sit upright and are active in the daytime or in artificially-lit in dense clusters.

Cane Toad tadpoles are shiny black on top and have a plain dark belly and a short thin tail. They are smaller - less than 3.5 cm 1½") long - than most native tadpoles and often gather in huge numbers in shallow water. Cane Toad spawn is unlike that of native species and 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.



Introduction to Australia

Cane Toads were introduced to Australia to eat French's Cane Beetle and the Greyback Cane Beetle. The 'whitegrub' larvae of these beetles eat the roots of sugar cane and kill or stunt the plants. The Australian Bureau of Sugar Experimental Stations imported about 100 toads from Hawaii to the Meringa Experimental Station near Cairns. The toads bred quickly and more than 3000 were released in the sugar cane plantations of north Queensland in July 1935.

At that time, some naturalists and scientists warned of the dangers of liberating Cane Toads in Australia. The protesters included a former New South Wales Government Entomologist, W W Froggatt (well, he would protest, wouldn't he?), and an Australian Museum Curator, Roy Kinghorn. Their protests resulted in a brief moratorium on the release of toads, but releases resumed in 1936.



Distribution

Since their introduction into Queensland the range of cane toads has expanded through Australia’s northern landscape and they are now moving westward at an estimated 40-60 km (23-35 miles) per year. Cane toads reached Brisbane by 1945, Burketown in north-western Queensland by the early 1980s, Iron Range on the Cape York Peninsula by 1983 and the tip of the Cape by 1994. By 1995, their westward expansion had reached the Roper River in the Gulf of Carpentaria in the Northern Territory. By March 2001, they had reached Kakadu National Park. In February 2009, cane toads crossed the Western Australian border with the Northern Territory (over 2000 km from the site they were released 74 years before). To the south, cane toads were introduced to Byron Bay in 1965 and then spread to Yamba and Port Macquarie on the north coast of NSW in 2003.


MapCaneToads.jpg


Habitat

The toads can be accidentally transported to new locations, for example in pot plants or loads of timber. One occasionally hears reports of Cane Toads even in places as unlikely as Melbourne which I suspect is a result of them hitching rides in removalist vans and the like. Fortunately they can't survive in the cold down here.

Cane toads need constant access to moisture to survive. Instead of drinking, they absorb water through the skin on their belly - from dew, moist sand or any other moist material. If forced to stay in flooded conditions, cane toads can absorb too much water and die. They can also die from water loss during dry conditions. In Australia there are no specific predators or diseases that control cane toads.

The toads can breed at any time of year but seem to prefer the weather conditions that occur with the onset of the wet season. They will lay their eggs in still or slow-moving waters. Females can lay 8000–30 000 eggs at a time. In comparison, most Australian native frogs typically lay 1000–2000 eggs per year. Cane toad eggs hatch in two or three days and the tadpole stage lasts between four and eight weeks. In tropical conditions, the toadlets can reach adult size within a year, but this may take twice that long in colder climates.



Impact

The cane toad defends itself through poison and is poisonous, to varying degrees, during all its life stages. Adult cane toads produce toxin from glands over their upper surface, but especially from bulging glands on their shoulders — these exude venom when the toad is provoked. While some birds and native predators have learned to avoid the poison glands of adult toads, other predators are more vulnerable and die rapidly after ingesting toads. Toads contain poisons that act on the heart and on the central nervous system. The poison is absorbed through body tissues such as those of the eyes, mouth and nose.

The arrival of cane toads in Kakadu National Park was linked to a marked decline in some native predators in the park, especially northern quolls (Dasyurus hallucatus) and large goannas. However, based on current evidence it appears that some native predator species which are heavily impacted when toads arrive make rapid adaptations (both behavioural and physiological) allowing for population recovery in the longer term.

Adult cane toads may compete with native animals, particularly for shelter. For example, a 2004 study showed that cane toads ruined one-third of nest attempts of ground-nesting rainbow bee-eaters by usurping their nest burrows and preying upon their eggs and young nestling.


CaneToad.jpg

Fugly​



Control

It is possible to control cane toad numbers humanely in a small area, such as a local creek or pond. This can be done by collecting the long jelly-like strings of cane toad eggs from the water or by humanely disposing of adult cane toads. Control is best at the egg or adult stages because cane toad tadpoles can easily be confused with some native tadpoles. Adult cane toads are also readily confused with some of the larger native frogs. Care should be taken to ensure you can correctly identify your local frog fauna before you become involved in projects to remove cane toads from the environment. This approach to cane toad control requires ongoing monitoring of the creek or pond. Fine-mesh fencing can also assist in keeping cane toads from ponds that are in need of special protection.

There is unlikely to ever be a broadscale method available to control cane toads across Australia. Researchers are beginning to understand the toad’s impact on native fauna and to appreciate the ways in which native species are adapting to the presence of cane toads and recovering from the impact of their arrival. Protecting our most vulnerable native species on a local scale is the focus of current planning around cane toads.



Classification


Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Amphibia
Order: Anura
Family: Bufonidae
Genus: Bufo
Species: marinus​



Fun Fact


CaneToad3.jpg

© Telegraph.co.uk

This toad (a male) was captured near Darwin, Northern Territory on 27 Mar, 2007
​




Sources:

 
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Very informative, dear Pharaoh!

Was it in "He Died With a Falafel in His Hand" that someone was playing golf with Cane Toads as balls? Very funny, but oh so cruel.
 
The arrival of the toads was long forecast and they finally made it to Darwin. They used to be an exotic curiosity that we'd see on QLD holidays. I guess now the local tourism industry can get into the stuffed toad biz.
 
Orphia Nay said:
Very informative, dear Pharaoh!

Was it in "He Died With a Falafel in His Hand" that someone was playing golf with Cane Toads as balls? Very funny, but oh so cruel.
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Yep.

I thought I'd leave the methods of despatching the varmints out of the main article, but I'm sure there are a million stories to tell. I shall start the ball rolling, so to speak.

The golf club is by far the most favoured method of removing Cane Toads from one's lawn in Queensland, and I believe a 4-Wood is the club of choice for the discerning toad removalist. This is rarely an effective method of sending the victim off to toady heaven though, and generally serves only to remove them from one's immediate presence - all the way over next-door's fence, with luck. If 'them next door' happen to have one of those particularly annoying yappy dogs one may even hope to kill two birds with one stone, as it were, although dogs generally have one near miss with a CT and then won't touch them again.

A more humane method is to gather them up, put them in a plastic bag and bung them in the freezer for a few days. (Make sure you have Mum's permission for this, boys and girls, or bad things are likely to happen) It's important when using this method to ensure that the CTs are left in the freezer for three or four days, since a mere overnight/24 hour sojourn won't bother them at all. I've seen them thaw out and hop away after 48 hours in amongst the ice cream and fish fingers.

The damned things can be incredibly hard to kill. In non-golfing households it's sometimes convenient to stop a toad in its tracks by pinning it to the Earth with a handy garden- or pitch-fork, but this is only a stop-gap until something more fatal can be arranged. A toad immobilised in this way will quite happily resume its journey when the fork is removed, even after a day or two.

I've heard rumours that even a Saltie won't eat a Cane Toad but I can't attest to any personal knowledge of this being the case.
 
Those things are a menace in many parts of Hawai'i as well. The locally preferred method of dispatching them appears to be a Toyota Tacoma, judging by the number of Cane Toad Pancakes that can be found on any Hawai'ian road.
 
The ever inventive Aussie scientists may have found a new weapon against Cane toads.

Cat food latest weapon against Australia's cane toads.

(Reuters) - A tin of cat food may be the solution to reducing the number of toxic cane toads in Australia, one of the country's major pests which environmentalists have tried for years to stop from killing off the native wildlife.

Link:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE61I1K820100219

Great article as usual, Akhenaten.
 
A stubby is what most Australians call a 375ml bottle with beer in it.

It looks like this:


Stubby1.jpg


However, in the Northern Territory, that's not a stubby, this is a stubby:


Stubby2.jpg


These pictures are to scale. Territorians, for the most part, aren't


:)
 
Someone bought me a slab of Carlton Cold a while ago, and it's not a bad drop. I like it with a bit of lime juice cordial in it.

I don't have a favourite beer. I get sick of the taste of anything if I drink it too often. Luckily there are lots of different beers to try. :)
 
arthwollipot said:
Nah - I can't argue matters of taste for very long. I drink Carlton Cold.
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Orphia Nay said:
Someone bought me a slab of Carlton Cold a while ago, and it's not a bad drop. I like it with a bit of lime juice cordial in it.

I don't have a favourite beer. I get sick of the taste of anything if I drink it too often. Luckily there are lots of different beers to try. :)
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Well that was a short argument. I loves me some Carlton Cold meself, to the extent that I might just go and get some this very minute.



Stubby4.jpg
​


Also, congratulations, Missus, on your capitalisation. You have no idea how much it was annoying me having to type it the other way.
 
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Akhenaten said:
Well that was a short argument. I loves me some Carlton Cold meself, to the extent that I might just go and get some this very minute.



[qimg]http://www.yvonneclaireadams.com/HostedStuff/Stubby4.jpg[/qimg][qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/209954b72c4798d032.gif[/qimg]​
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I should have continued... while I don't have A favourite, I've got plenty of favouriteS.

Corona
Kingfisher (Indian beer)
Cooper's Pale Ale
Foster's :duck:

And I just tried a dark lager (not as dark as Guinness) the other day from Aldi, which was reallllly good, but I can't remember the name.

Also, congratulations, Missus, on your capitalisation. You have no idea how much it was annoying me having to type it the other way.
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Thanks. I was long overdue in sorting that out. :o
 
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