DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

Exploding Toads in a Hamburg Pond Baffle Scientists:

More than 1,000 toads have puffed up and exploded in a Hamburg pond in recent weeks, and German scientists still have no explanation for what’s causing the combustion.

This is a meme with legs. (Ahem.) See more exploding toad news. The toads have even been slashdotted.

Update: toads are exploding in Denmark, too.

Seeing this in print makes me laugh:

Update 2005-04-29, courtesy the Chicago Tribune (via Google’s Exploding Toad Alerts):

One German scientist has a theory: Hungry crows are pecking out their livers.

“Crows are clever,” said Frank Mutschmann, a Berlin veterinarian who tested specimens. “They learn quickly from watching other crows how to get the livers.”

Based on wounds, it appears that a bird pecks into the toad, and the toad puffs itself up as a natural defense mechanism, Mutschmann said.

But, because the liver is missing and there’s a hole in the toad’s body, the lungs burst, and blood vessels and organs ooze out, he said.

Spiegel.de weighs in with the same story, translated by babelfish:

If earth toads are on the Balz, they - humans not dissimilarly - come along every now and then quite blown up. Balloon equal the animals blow themselves up, in order to look quakend for partners. More than 1000 animals inflated themselves at the edge Hamburg pool, until they said good-bye bursting from this life.
…
That Hamburg Institut sent thereupon toad remainders to the citizen of Berlin veterinary surgeon Frank Mutschmann - which had promptly a plausible explanation for the large toad blow-out ready. “Crows were most likely,” said the amphibian expert… The discriminating birds toads purposefully anpicken and only their liver to feed.