Adventure Ausrama Blog

As soon as inland rain arrives at Australian lakes, the banded stilt water bird makes its presence felt as well. It somehow knows that the rains have started from several hundred miles away.  This useful ability determines their way of life. They don't hang about long. Rainfall will be limited so they move on to the next fresh rains spot. Birds were tagged with satellite transmitters. One bird flew directly to a saline wetland 1,000 miles away in two days. Another bird got there four days later, but the destination for both was the same. Banded stilts do not have to migrate for improved feeding conditions. Their inbuilt system allows them to always find water. Why don't other birds do this? Obviously, evolution is "hit-and-miss". Animals develop abilities purely by chance. This is why evolution is successful. Animals move into niches that line up with their attributes. ✴ Science by Ty Buchanan ✴ http://www.adventure--australia.blogspot.com/ ...

You don't have to be big to kill a crocodile. A relatively small imported pest can kill one. Cane toads are in plague proportions in the Northern Territory.  Some like it so much here they have grown to be much larger than in their native Central America. Cane toads have poisonous sacks on their heads. When a saltwater crocodile eats a toad assuming it to be a tasty snack the salty ingests the poison and dies.  The problem is so serious that the crocodile population has fallen by half in some areas. Because the species takes a long time to breed up numbers, crocodiles could become very scarce in some regions. Introducing cane toads was a great mistake by Australian scientists. They were brought in to combat beetles destroying sugar crops in 1935, but the toads ignored the beetles and now threaten many native species by eating what they eat. To travel faster around the country some toads have developed larger hind legs to cover a greater distance before the sun goes down....