Oz Territory terrorized by MUTANT CANE TOADS!

Nah, not yet....

Simple mutation is no problem to ID'ers. When it 'evolves' into a cat or a giraffe or a giraffocat (basically, a creature which it isn't), then there'll be a problem to explain.

It's about the difference between changing data and new data.

Evolution in action

Explosion of new toad layouts, just like the Cambrian Explosion.

This kind of thing happens every time a species or group of species suddenly loses most of the predators that used to cull the weaklings - loads of mutations make it through the sieve, and after a while some of them may become common as the 'fitter' variants in the new environment.

For example, extra arms might mean you can hang onto a mate better - or throw off the competition while still holding on.

Is that the exploding toads?

I seem to remember something about eating liver and bursting.

How much caused by the imported vermin

The imported vermin is by and large just a nuisance. Mice, rats, cats, foxes - even cane toads. While cane toads are poisonous to eat, they don't outright attack you.

The native wildlife is another matter entirely. For example redbacks and funnelweb spiders will attack you without provocation, just because they don't like the colour of the shirt you're wearing. Both will send you to hospital pretty fucking smartly, although there have been no deaths for a few decades because people here act on a bite right away.

Yellow-belly black snakes and brown snakes aren't quite so aggressive, but they'll definitely let you know if you've stepped on them, by sending you to the hospital with some choice neurotoxin in your veins. That their hunting method generally involves them looking like fallen branches until something steps on them doesn't help matters.

Cassowaries will simply gut you like a hogtied pig with the spurs on their feet if they don't like the look of you. There's usually no surviving a cassowary attack, because they're pretty efficient at removing all your innards.

Crocodiles: In Australia, these fucking 40-foot monsters are the last surviving remnants of the Jurassic. Want to see what dinosaurs looked like IRL? Take a trip to the Northern Territory.

Box jellyfish, blue-ringed octopi, cone snails, stonefish, stingrays, white pointers. Yeah, the sea ain't safe either. The first four of those will kill you in SECONDS, stingrays enjoy giving you open heart surgery a la Steve Irwin, and white pointers - well, Jaws is a pretty good indicator of what happens there.

Don't forget the drop-bears. Those bastards will kill you as soon as look at you. They might look cute and cuddly in the tourist mugshots, but those cute koalas you see in the petting zoos and national parks are the specially trained tame ones. Koalas in the wild are damn vicious beasts that will attack even a roo without hesitation. They've made bloody, mangled messes of more than a few unwary tourists out hiking the outback, who made the mistake of thinking that cute = friendly.

So yeah, most of our native wildlife is pretty nasty. It's probably what inspired Harry Harrison to write his "Deathworld" series. Just be careful what you step on, look up at the trees before you walk under them and always check the toilet seat before you sit down. ;)

@Hehehe

Most of the whipper-snappers on this site won't understand that pun!

Mine is the one with a pair of EL34s in the pocket.

Four legs good, five legs better

is all