When the mating game goes wrong
None can deny the magnetic power of sex. Potential mates puff and preen, fill the airwaves with hoots, twitters and croaks, and lay irresistible scent trails to find partners. Usually the system works so well that each species can filter the clutter of distracting stimuli to find a member of the opposite sex of its own kind.
Occasionally things go frightfully awry. Normally, a male Cane Toad attracts a female by calling from still water. The successful suitor climbs onto the female's back and clings there in a coupling called amplexus. When she lays her eggs, he is firmly attached ready to fertilise them. But sometimes wires get crossed, and this male toad has really missed the mark.
When Moss Milfull investigated a lump on one of his garden Water Dragons in the northern Brisbane suburb of Warner, he discovered an amorous toad with its limbs locked in the embrace of amplexus. After snapping this picture, it took considerable levering with a stick to prise the misguided amphibian from its uncomfortable perch on the lizard's spiny crest. Who knows why the toad was attracted to the lizard, but it has made a mistake on two counts. He has not only selected the wrong species, the dragon is a male!