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The Guardian

A huge storm in Australia’s north on Sunday flushed out a sight which either fascinated or horrified those who saw it – 10 cane toads riding the back of a 3.5 metre python.
Paul and Anne Mock were at home with their daughters in the remote Western Australian town of Kununurra, when a large storm dumped almost 70mm of rain into their dam.
Worried the dam and spillway might break its banks, Paul Mock ventured outside in the middle of the lightning and rain.
“The lake was so full it had filled the cane toad burrows around the bank and they were all sitting on top of the grass – thousands of them,” he said. “He was in the middle of the lawn, making for higher ground.”

68mm just fell in the last hour at Kununurra. Flushed all the cane toads out of my brothers dam. Some of them took the easy way out - hitching a ride on the back of a 3.5m python. pic.twitter.com/P6mPc2cVS5
— Andrew Mock (@MrMeMock) December 30, 2018

“He” was Monty, a 3.5m resident python also fleeing the rising water, only with a band of cheeky travellers on board.
“He was literally moving across the grass at full speed with the frogs hanging on,” said Mock said. “I thought it was fascinating that some of the local reptiles have gotten used to [the cane toads] and not eating them.”
Explainer: Poisonous cane toads mating with mangoes, snakes and killing crocodiles
Mock’s brother Andrew posted a photograph of the sight to Twitter, prompting horror, amazement and jokes about the outback Uber.


Amphibian expert Jodi Rowley, a senior lecturer in biological sciences at the University of New South Wales, said on Twitter that the male cane toads may have been trying to mate with the python.


Cane toads are a damaging pest in Australia’s tropical north, with their apparently unstoppable march from east to west over the past few decades invading communities and devastating ecosystems and native species, which often die after eating the unfamiliar and very toxic invaders.
In Kununurra, Mock said, all the big goannas were the first to disappear.
How Briton helped catch pet-eating Hong Kong python that attacked him
“They are starting to come back, and the snakes did go quiet but they’re starting to come back too,” he said.
“You just learn to kick the toads out of the way when you go into your house at night. They’re attracted to the light. They’re on the driveway and you dodge them.
“You kind of almost forget they’re there until you see how many there are when they’re all out of the burrows.”
The devastation caused by cane toads has inspired some unconventional attempts to save the native wildlife, including community toad busting groups, and training animals not to eat them.
Some, like Monty, appear to have taught themselves.


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Australia

10 toads hitch ride on a python ‘to escape Australian floodwaters’. Yes, there’s a photo – and a sexy twist to the tale

Cane toads ride the back of a 3.5 metre python in Kununurra on Sunday. Photo: Twitter / Andrew Mock

Viral video shows Indonesian villagers wrestling eight-metre-long giant python

Villagers wrestle the eight-metre long python. Photo: AFP

Plot twist: Indian forest ranger posed for photos with python draped around his neck. It nearly strangled him

‘Had I panicked, it could have been fatal’

Indian forest ranger Sanjay Dutta poses with a rock python in Jalpaiguri on Sunday. Photo: YouTube

Inside Myanmar’s ‘snake temple’, now a nirvana for dozens of large pythons

A monk and one of the snakes at the Baungdawgyoke pagoda, outside Yangon. Photo: AFP

This photo taken on September 9, 2018 shows a snake resting behind Buddha statues at the Baungdawgyoke pagoda, outside Yangon. - Crossing a bridge to the middle of a lake in Myanmar's Yangon region, pilgrims arrive at the Baungdawgyoke pagoda, dubbed the "snake temple"by locals, eager to pin their hopes on the pythons slinking across the temple's floors and draped across windows. (Photo by Ye Aung THU / AFP) / TO GO WITH Myanmar-animals-religion, PHOTOESSAY

This photo taken on September 9, 2018 shows snakes resting on a window of the Baungdawgyoke pagoda, outside Yangon. - Crossing a bridge to the middle of a lake in Myanmar's Yangon region, pilgrims arrive at the Baungdawgyoke pagoda, dubbed the "snake temple"by locals, eager to pin their hopes on the pythons slinking across the temple's floors and draped across windows. (Photo by Ye Aung THU / AFP) / TO GO WITH Myanmar-animals-religion, PHOTOESSAY

This photo taken on September 9, 2018 shows workers cleaning the pathway to the Baungdawgyoke pagoda, outside Yangon. - Crossing a bridge to the middle of a lake in Myanmar's Yangon region, pilgrims arrive at the Baungdawgyoke pagoda, dubbed the "snake temple"by locals, eager to pin their hopes on the pythons slinking across the temple's floors and draped across windows. (Photo by Ye Aung THU / AFP) / TO GO WITH Myanmar-animals-religion, PHOTOESSAY

News

Asia

Australasia

3.5-metre snake was ‘moving across the grass at full speed with the frogs hanging on’
The strange sight, captured in remote Kununurra in Western Australia, may represent unusual sexual behaviour by the toads


The 3.5-metre snake was ‘moving across the grass at full speed with the frogs hanging on’. The strange sight, captured in remote Kununurra in Western Australia, may represent unusual sexual behaviour by the toads.


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