Friday, 27 September 2019

Eat your heart out: Native water rats have worked out how to safely eat cane toads


SEPTEMBER 23, 2019

by Marissa Parrott and Simon Clulow, The Conversation
Water rats in Western Australia are safely hunting cane toads. Author provided
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.
The rats, which can grow to over 1kg, are the only mammal found to specifically target large toads, neatly dissecting the toads to eat their hearts and livers while avoiding the poisonous skin and glands.
Water rats
Water rats are nocturnal and specially adapted to live in waterways, with webbed feet and soft water-resistant fur. Their fur is so impressive there was once a thriving water rat fur industry in Australia.
They can be found in lakes, rivers and estuaries, often living alongside people, in New South Wales, Queensland, Tasmania, South Australia, far north and southwest Western Australia, the Northern Territory, and Victoria, where they can even be seen along St Kilda Pier.

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