A massive cane toad was recently found by park rangers in the northern Australian state of Queensland, that may have broken records with its size.
According to local media reports, rangers in Queensland's Conway National Park stumbled upon a 6-pound cane toad last week while investigating a snake they had spotted.
"I reached down and grabbed the cane toad and couldn't believe how big and heavy it was," said ranger Kylee Gray.
"A cane toad that size will eat anything it can fit into its mouth, and that includes insects, reptiles, and small mammals," she said, adding that its size meant it was likely a female. Female cane toads can lay tens of thousands of eggs at a time.
Kylee Gray, a ranger with the Queensland Department of Environment and Science, holds a giant cane toad, Thursday, Jan. 12, 2023, near Airlie Beach, Australia.
© AP Photo / Queensland Department of Environment and Science
Other media have dubbed the creature “Toadzilla.”
Gray said it had clearly “been around a long time," noting they can live up to 15 years in the wild.
However, rather than let the titanic toad go on its way, the rangers were forced to euthanize it.
In its native habitat in Central and South America, the toxic toad has numerous predators in the air, on land and in the water that are able to tolerate or avoid its poisons. However, in Australia and on various Pacific islands, few creatures can kill it, and many that mistake it for other species of toad and prey upon it subsequently die.
Researchers have tracked the precipitous decline of the northern quoll and Mertens water monitor in Queensland, associated with the spread of the cane toad, which was brought there in 1935.