The toads ran amok, spreading across much of the continent and causing severe declines in the populations of some predators who died after eating them.

Eight decades on, Australians are still working to contain the toads.

Newts and salamanders, unlike frogs and toads, keep their tails as adults.

Backpackers to the country can even earn visa points helping to fight the toads spread.

Shortly afterward, as dusk fell, they stepped outside and immediately saw half a dozen Asian toads.

With some 4 million toads to kill, it would be one of the largest attempts ever made at stomping out an invasive amphibian.

Scientists are developing fences that keep the toads away from breeding grounds and chemicals that trap the tadpoles.

Intrigued, the researchers found the man s house, just next to a nickel refinery, but they didn t expect to find the toad.

In Madagascar, the matter is urgent because scientists expect the toads to spread quickly.

Second, male toads convene around bodies of water at night, calling females, so there s a convenient place to capture or kill them.

Scientists have three important reasons to hope that an environmentally friendly eradication is possible.

Now a group of herpetologists and invasive species experts is pushing to eradicate the rapidly reproducing toads before it s too late.

Eradication is the only option that has a definitive end point, the report explains. All other responses would need to be carried out in perpetuity.

The island has no other toads, so the new arrival could be devastating for predators and prey, the report warns.

But the company points out that it already sits on the committee set up to deal with the invasion, along with government ministries and conservation organizations.

Scientists in the working group suggest that nickel and cobalt company Ambatovy may have accidentally brought the toad to Madagascar in a shipping container.

Even the country s three telecom companies have teamed up to help they ve started a free text message system so people can report toad locations.

As a next step, members of the working group hope to do a mini eradication along the southern edge of the incursion zone, in order to restrict the toad s expansion into the canal and further refine killing methods.

But local people are still eager to get rid of the toads, which they call radaka boka ( leprous or scaly frogs) or radaka Dynatec (which translates roughly to frogs from Ambatovy s refinery ).

Children in Laos have gotten sick and, in at least one case, died from consuming the Asian toad, and the risk to Malagasy people, less familiar with the toads, may be even greater.

The cat s out of the bag already, says Pete Lowry, a biologist at the Missouri Botanical Garden and a board member of Madagascar Fauna and Flora Group, which is helping to coordinate the eradication effort. The potential consequences are devastating.

Finally, recent testing reveals that spraying a citric acid solution with a concentration similar to lemon juice, according to Raxworthy kills toads through rapid dehydration without doing serious harm to other animals.

The report also says that snakes are dying after eating the toads a decline in snake populations could cause black rat numbers to surge, and more rats could mean more sanitation issues in a country that already battles the plague.

The threat has special resonance because of what happened 5,500 miles away in Australia starting in 1935, when 100 cane toads were imported from Hawaii by sugar farmers hoping to control beetles that were destroying their crops.

From the point of view of managing Madagascar s biodiversity and managing this crisis, it doesn t make any difference who introduced the toad, says Missouri s Lowry, who has an unpaid position on Ambatovy s scientific advisory panel. The point is not to look back and say who s guilty.