Pest-eating toads in Indonesia save cocoa supply, say scientists

[Judi Lynn]

Pest-eating toads in Indonesia save cocoa supply, say scientists
Sep 19, 2010, 12:11 GMT

Goettingen, Germany - The world's supply of chocolate depends partly on hard work by ugly toads in Indonesia, a group of German and Australian agriculture scientists have discovered.

The toads like to dine on an invasive pest, the yellow crazy ant (Anoplolepis gracilipes). The non-native ants, each about 4 millimetres long, have overrun Indonesian cocoa plantations, driving out good ants which help protect the cocoa plants from disease.

Farmers will now be trained to encourage the bulgy-eyed Sulawesian toad (Ingerophrynus celebensis), an Indonesian native, to eat the ants and bring the ecosystem back into balance. Indonesia is the world's third-largest exporter of cocoa.

A team from the universities of Goettingen in Germany and Adelaide in Australia have just published the finding in the British Royal Society's journal Proceedings. They discovered that the toads are free pest-control workers because they love to eat yellow crazy ants.

http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/asiapacific/news/article_1585531.php/Pest-eating-toads-in-Indonesia-save-cocoa-supply-say-scientists

http://c.photoshelter.com.nyud.net:8090/img-get/I0000U8xre5QCPq0/t/150/I0000U8xre5QCPq0.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org.nyud.net:8090/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/62/Bufo_biporc_M_050409_015_tdp.jpg/250px-Bufo_biporc_M_050409_015_tdp.jpg http://www.ecologyasia.com.nyud.net:8090/images-k-z/sulawesi-toad_cu_0059.jpg

Ingerophrynus celebensis

[xchrom]

1. Yellow crazy ants. Who knew? Nt

[LiberalEsto]

2. Next time you sip a mocha latte, thank a toad.

Ribbit!

[PetrusMonsFormicarum]

3. Glad they're indigenous

Australia's misguided importation of cane toads to combat pest on sugar cane crops has been uniformly disastrous to the continent. A highly recommended documentary:
Cane Toads: An Unnatural History

[skoalyman]

4. mmmm frog legs

:toast: