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An enormous 2.7kg (5.9 pounds) cane toad has been discovered in North Queensland.
ABC News reported that when ranger Kylee Gray stumbled across a gigantic marine toad, she told the outlet that she initially thought it was a practical joke.
"I just couldn't believe it to be honest — I've never seen anything so big,” she said.
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The ranger then dubbed the amphibian ‘Toadzilla’.
Gray, who is part of the Department of Environment and Science, said she had been clearing a trail at Conway National Park in the Whitsundays when she spotted the humongous toad.
The ranger stopped in her tracks to allow a red-belly snack to pass, but what lurked behind was far more of a show-stopper.
"There was a red-belly black snake on the track in front of us...so we stopped to let the snake pass and got out of the vehicle and right next to us was this huge cane toad," she said.
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"It flinched when I walked up to it and I yelled out to my supervisor to show him.”
Gray described that it initially looked like a ‘football with legs’.
However, this could potentially be the largest toad ever.
According to the Guinness World Records, in 1991, the heaviest toad weighed in at 2.65 kilograms.
But, Todzilla just clipped ahead, weighing around 2.7kg.
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After Gray discovered the mighty toad, she placed it into a container and removed it from the park.
She said: “A cane toad that size will eat anything it can fit into its mouth, and that includes insects, reptiles and small mammals.”
She added she believed the toad to be a female as they can grow twice as big as the male species.
After the pest being collected, it was euthanised and will be sent to the Queensland Museum in Brisbane.
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Cane toads were first introduced to Australia in 1935 when government entomologist Reginald Mungomery captured 102 toads from Hawaii and brought them into the country.
Mungomery initially thought the toads could eradicate beetles eating sugar cane crops at the time.
However, they eventually became the more prevalent pest, as they began poisoning predators that tried to eat them while they spread across the country.
Cane toads are usually found in Queensland, the Northern Territory, New South Wales and Western Australia.
Topics: News, Australia, Animals, Environment
Charisa Bossinakis