Most nights, armed men stomp through the Perigord-Limousin Regional Park in southwestern France with orders to shoot ... frogs. But not just any amphibians. They're after Rana catesbeiana , the North American bullfrog , introduced to France in 1968 by a French aviator who liked the idea of the critters croaking in his garden. They're now an ecological menace.
Weighing up to a kilo, these voracious predators gorge on crustaceans, fish, other frogs, salamanders and even the occasional bird. 'It's capable of attacking anything it can swallow,' says Tony Dejean, the naturalist at Perigord-Limousin leading the operation. Worse, it was recently discovered that bullfrogs carry chytrid fungus, which kills other amphibians.
Via Mental Floss
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