Lizards trained to avoid eating toxic toads

Australian scientists on Wednesday said they had devised an "innovative method of conservation" through feeding giant monitor lizards small cane toads so they won't be killed by larger-sized amphibians.

Cane toads, an invasive species from Central and South America that were introduced to Australia in 1935, are so toxic they can kill predators that try to eat them and are continuing to spread across northern Australia at an estimated 40-60 kilometers a year.

Scientists have said the spread of the cane toads - which an Australian university study found numbered about 200 million on the island continent - was causing catastrophic population declines in predators.