Australia’s water rats, or Rakali, are one of Australia’s beautiful but lesser-known native rodents. And these intelligent, semi-aquatic rats have revealed another talent: they are one of the only Australian mammals to safely eat toxic cane toads.
Our research, published today in Australian Mammalogy, found water rats in Western Australia adapted to hunt the highly poisonous toads less than two years after the toads moved into the rats’ territory.
…more of the story….
But despite medium toads being far more common, three quarters of the dead toads we found were large, and the remainder were medium. No small toad bodies were found or observed being attacked.
While some species, such as keelback snakes and several birds (including black and whistling kites, and crows) can eat cane toads, there has been less evidence of mammals hunting this new type of prey and living to tell the tale.
Some rodents can eat small juvenile toads, but no rodents have been documented specifically targeting large toads. In our case, water rats preferred to eat large toads, despite medium-sized toads outnumbering them by 27 to 1.
https://theconversation.com/eat-your-heart-out-native-water-rats-have-worked-out-how-to-safely-eat-cane-toads-123986