Birds May Be Behind Exploding German Toads.
Please note that this is filed under “Science” not humor, because it's apparently true.
A Personal Blog
by Michael Froomkin
Laurie Silvers & Mitchell Rubenstein Distinguished Professor of Law
University of Miami School of Law
My Publications | e-mail
All opinions on this blog are those of the author(s) and not their employer(s) unelss otherwise specified.
Who Reads Discourse.net?
Readers describe themselves.
Please join in.Reader Map
Recent Comments
- Brooks Fudenberg on I Voted
- Jermaine Chad Ingram on Some Thoughts about the Downballot (Voters’ Guide Part II: Judicial Retention Elections)
- C.E. Petit on I Voted
- Jane Moscowitz on I Voted
- Ally Figueroa on Some Thoughts about the Downballot (Voters’ Guide Part II: Judicial Retention Elections)
Subscribe to Blog via Email
Join 52 other subscribers
Apparently not, the hypothesis that crows might be behind this has yet to be observed:
“We haven’t seen that. It might be, it might not be,” said institute spokeswoman Janne Kloepper. “It’s speculation,” until it’s observed, she said.
Whereas the story strongly implies that toads have been witnessed in the just before, during, and after of the gruesome phenomenon:
Local environmental workers in Hamburg have described it as a scene out of a horror or science fiction movie, with the bloated frogs agonizing and twitching for several minutes, inflating like a balloon before suddenly bursting.
“It’s horrible,” biologist Heidi Mayerhoefer was quoted as telling the Hamburger Morgenpost daily.
“The toads burst, the entrails slide out. But the animal isn’t immediately dead they keep struggling for several minutes.”
I think if crows were behind it they would have been seen by these witnesses.
It’s a genuine piece of Forteana.
And Dave Barry is on hiatus!