Clever Dumpster Birds Learn to Detox Poisonous Toads

The white ibis has a bad rap in Australia, where it is called “bin chicken” for its propensity to root through garbage. (Also “tip turkey,” “dumpster chook,” and “rubbish raptor.”) Now the bird is winning over its critics because it has developed a particular skill set: draining the hated cane toad of its poison.

Cane toads were introduced to Australia in 1935 and have spread unchecked ever since. With no natural predators and packing lethal venom in its skin, the toad is one of the more pernicious invasive species in the country. Most animals that come into contact with the toxin succumb to an immediate heart attack.

Not the Australian white ibis (Threskiornis molucca) which has been seen up and down the eastern coast “playing” with the toads, flipping them into the air until the toad releases its poison through glands on its back. The big birds avoid the toxin by wiping the toads in the grass or rinsing them in water, if available. Once the toad is sufficiently clean, the ibis has lunch.

“Ibis do get an unfair reputation... [but] this demonstrates that these are clever birds,” Emily Vincent, who runs the invasive species program at the nonprofit Watergum, tells the BBC. “They've actually forced the cane toad to get rid of the toxin itself, they haven't had to mutilate it in any way. The cane toad is doing all the work for them.”

There are more than two billion cane toads in Australia, firmly entrenched across four states. One female can produce 70,000 eggs in a year, so getting this toxic population under control is no small task. 

Some other smart bird species – hawks and crows, for example – have also learned how to avoid the poison, by flipping the toads on their backs and then eating only the choice cuts of meat, away from the venom. The ibis manages to consume the whole hog, as it were.

Photo credit: BBC News