A huge storm in north Australia on Sunday flushed out a sight which either fascinated or horrified those who saw it — 10 cane toads riding on the back of a 3.5m python.
Paul and Anne Mock were at home with their daughters in the remote west Australian town of Kununurra when a large storm dumped almost 70mm of rain into their dam.
Worried the dam and spillway might break its banks, Paul Mock ventured outside in the middle of the lightning and rain.
“The lake was so full it had filled the cane toad burrows around the bank and they were all sitting on top of the grass — thousands of them,” he said. “He was in the middle of the lawn, making for higher ground.”
“He” was Monty, a 3.5m resident python also fleeing the rising water, only with a band of cheeky travelers on board.
“He was literally moving across the grass at full speed with the frogs hanging on,” Paul Mock said. “I thought it was fascinating that some of the local reptiles have gotten used to [the cane toads] and not eating them.”
Paul Mock’s brother, Andrew, posted a photograph of the sight on Twitter, prompting horror, amazement and jokes about the outback Uber.
Cane toads are a damaging pest in Australia’s tropical north, with their apparently unstoppable march from east to west over the past few decades invading communities, and devastating ecosystems and native species, which often die after eating the unfamiliar and very toxic invaders.
In Kununurra, Paul Mock said all the big goannas were the first to disappear.
“They are starting to come back and the snakes did go quiet, but they’re starting to come back, too,” he said.
The devastation caused by cane toads has inspired some unconventional attempts to save the native wildlife, including community toad busting groups, and training animals not to eat them with low-toxicity cane toad sausages.
Some, like Monty, appear to have taught themselves.
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