Re: Alternative tasking for them?
Cane toads secrete ouabain from glands behind the head. Ouabain poisons the sodium/potassium ATPase which all cells have and which maintains an electrical potential difference between the outside and the inside (it moves more sodium out than potassium in). Without this nerve conduction and muscle contractions will decline and cells will lose the ability to regulate their water balance (you move dissolved solutes down their electrochemical gradient or pump them up it to get the water to move by osmosis.
That is a difficult thing, like cyanide which poisons the citric acid cycle, to develop resistance to.
Back in the Physiology Dept in Dunedin, NZ we used cane toads as teaching tools and research subjects (their urinary bladders were patch-clamped). So I am familiar with them. I also know to wash my hands or replace my gloves after handling live toads and not to rub my eyes etc.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
