Australia’s most notorious and resilient pest, the cane toad, has been known to poison snakes, birds and even kangaroos — but a chilly day will stop it in its tracks, a new study by the University of Melbourne suggests.

The toads, introduced into Australia in the 1930s for pest control, have steadily advanced across Australia, conquering Brisbane and Darwin in the north, and hopping south towards Melbourne.

Michael Kearny’s study, published in the journal Ecography, centred around a two-metre sprint event for toads collected from four populations across the invasion front, conducted at a range of different temperatures. “We found that cane toads can barely hop once the get below about 15 degrees Celsius,” Dr Kearny said. In wet and warm Darwin, toads can hop more than 50km (30 miles) a year. But in cooler, drier Sydney and Perth, toads can barely manage 1km, and in Adelaide, Melbourne and Hobart they fail to get off the starting blocks at all.

The toads’ only hope is global warming, which could allow them to move 100km farther south than their present limit by 2050.

Explore World News

• Iraq News

• US & Americas News

• Europe News

• Middle East News

• Asia News

• Africa News

• Ireland News

Times Recommends

• Red Cross: Israel guilty of 'unacceptable' conduct
• Mobster Gotti 'dipped neighbour in acid bath'
• Hollywood wakes up to the British breakfast