Eat your heart out: Choice and handling of novel toxic prey by predatory water rats

Marissa L. Parrott; J. Sean Doody; Colin McHenry; Simon Clulow

doi:10.1071/AM19016

Eat your heart out: Choice and handling of novel toxic prey by predatory water rats

Marissa L. Parrott, J. Sean Doody, Colin McHenry, Simon Clulow

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

12 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

We investigated predator-prey interactions between cane toads (Rhinella marina) and native water rats (Hydromys chrysogaster), where toads are novel prey. We show that wild water rats preferentially targeted larger toads, and consumed specific non-toxic organs only. Rats either rapidly learned these behaviours, or adapted them from hunting native frogs.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	226-229
Number of pages	4
Journal	Australian Mammalogy
Volume	42
Issue number	2
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1071/AM19016
Publication status	Published - May 2020
Externally published	Yes

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abstract = "We investigated predator-prey interactions between cane toads (Rhinella marina) and native water rats (Hydromys chrysogaster), where toads are novel prey. We show that wild water rats preferentially targeted larger toads, and consumed specific non-toxic organs only. Rats either rapidly learned these behaviours, or adapted them from hunting native frogs.",

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Eat your heart out: Choice and handling of novel toxic prey by predatory water rats

Abstract

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