Huge cane toad found in northern Australia believed to be the largest on record: NPR

Kylie Gray, a ranger with the Queensland Department of Environment and Science, holds a giant cane toad on January 12 near Airlie Beach, Australia. The frog weighed 5.95 pounds.

Queensland Department of Environment and Science via AP

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Queensland Department of Environment and Science via AP

Kylie Gray, a ranger with the Queensland Department of Environment and Science, holds a giant cane toad on January 12 near Airlie Beach, Australia. The frog weighed 5.95 pounds.

Queensland Department of Environment and Science via AP

Park rangers in northern Australia have found a cane toad so gigantic it causes gasps and disbelief.

The frog, dubbed “Toadzilla” by the keepers, weighed a believed record-breaking 5.95 pounds—compared to an average weight of one pound.

Park ranger Kylie Gray spotted the monster frog while doing racetrack work in Conway National Park and “couldn’t believe its size and heaviness,” she said. he said in a press release.

The keepers think it’s a female frog, and while they don’t know how old she is, “that’s been around for a long time,” said Gray. Cane frogs can live up to 15 years in the wild.

The guards quickly put the frog into a container to remove it from the wild and euthanize it. Cane toads were introduced into Queensland in 1935 to control cane beetles, but they have become a devastating pest in their own right, colonizing habitats and poisoning other wildlife.

“A cane toad this size will eat anything that can fit in its mouth, and that includes insects, reptiles and small mammals,” said Gray.

Cane toads are native to South and Central America and have no natural predators in Australia. there It may have more than 200 million cane toads on the continent – a staggering increase from the 100 introduced less than a century ago. Since their bodies are toxic to other species, they have caused local extinctions of some potential predators.

The frog’s carcass will be donated to the Queensland Museum, who have expressed interest as it may be the largest ever. The largest previously known frog is the Prinsen, a Guinness World Record– He caught a pet toad from a cane that caught a record 5 pounds, 13 ounces in 1991.