In April 2005, experts were bamboozled by an outbreak of exploding toads in the Altona district of Hamburg.
Across a handful of nights, hundreds of amphibians swelled up to three times their size and then ruptured, propelling their entrails up to a metre away.
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Early theories, including water pollution or infection, were quickly discarded, leaving an unlikely prime suspect.
When German veterinarian Franz Mutschmann studied the dead toads, he discovered that their livers had been removed through a beak-sized hole.
Crows, he surmised, were to blame. Under attack, the toads would have puffed themselves up, but then after their death, the pressure kept building, until… Boom!
