According to an amphibian specialist, a group of ten cane toads who hitched a ride on a 3.5-meter-long python during a storm in Western Australia were really attempting to ᴍᴀᴛᴇ with the snake. Paul Mock took the shot and video at Kununurra, a town in the extreme north of the state, after a ᴠɪᴏʟᴇɴᴛ storm that was forcing the animals out of the dam on the family’s property.
Mock stated that he was surprised to see the snake at all when going around his property and “nearly walked on it” due to the severe rain. Monty, the olive python, is well-known in the area, according to Mock. Mock’s brother Andrew tweeted the photograph, claiming that the cane toads “took the easy way out” by utilizing the snake to escape the flooded dam.
A video of the snake shows it standing still on Mock’s lawn, which is covered in cane toads. Twitter users were quick to express their surprise at the photograph. After fear that the snake might be .k.i.l.led after swallowing its visitors, Andrew Mock stated that Monty “knows not to eat Cane Toads.” According to Jodi Rowley, a lecturer in biological sciences at the University of New South Wales, the cane toads may have been attempting to ᴍᴀᴛᴇ with the snake rather than just finding their way out of the dam.
Rowley then responded to Mock’s tweet by adding that male cane toads are known to go “a little carried away” with their ᴍᴀᴛɪɴɢ behavior. Cane toads are a fast-breeding pest species that has expanded across northern Australia after being introduced to Queensland in 1935 to reduce bug populations in sugar cane crops.
The toads, whose ᴘᴏɪsᴏɴᴏᴜs secretions have wreaked havoc on natural ecosystems, first crossed the border into Western Australia in 2015 and have since expanded over the Kimberley area.
