Shrinking toads attract lots of news coverage...
The publication of our Biology Letters note has garnered lots of press coverage all over the globe. The story that Guttural Toads introduced to Mauritius in 1922 have shrunk by nearly a third from their original size has led to a lot of interest. It ties into the fascination that people have with the role of islands in both dwarfism and gigantism. After all, Mauritius is probably best known for the evolution of a huge pigeon, commonly known as the Dodo, Raphus cucullatus.
Our finding that an invasive population of Guttural Toads had so quickly shrunk now raises questions about these other instances of gigantism and dwarfism. Is there a possibility that they also happened in only hundreds of years, instead of tens or hundreds of thousands, as previously thought?
There was another swathe of articles published after James' press release hit the web: read here
Animali Il record del rospo delle Mauritius: Focus.it, 03 Dec 2020
Miniature guttural toads on Mauritius and Réunion stun researchers: Agenparl, 08 Dec 2020
Morphological reshaping in guttural toads in Mauritius in a short time: The Hindu, 28 Nov 2020
Miniature guttural toads on Mauritius and Reunion stun researchers: Phys.org, 09 Dec 2020
Read the blog post about the paper here
Or read the original paper in Biology Letters here:
Baxter-Gilbert, J.H., Riley, J.L., Wagener, C., Mohanty, N.P., Measey, J. (in press) Shrinking before our isles: The rapid expression of insular dwarfism in two invasive populations of guttural toad (Sclerophrys gutturalis). Biology Letters http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2020.0651 pdf
