All it takes is one miserable night after a bad dinner or drink to make humans avoid an ingredient for life. To teach freshwater crocodiles in Australia to avoid a lethally poisonous toad, all it takes is one very, very nasty toad butt.
Freshwater crocodiles who chowed down on lithium chloride-laced carcasses of invasive cane toads were far less likely to eat live toads when the poisonous amphibians came hopping along. The result could help prevent the predator die-offs that occur as cane toads make their way across the Australian continent, researchers report August 14 in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.