Don’t eat that: Endangered quolls my benefit from aversion therapy

Eat something that’s bad for you and you get sick, effectively teaching you to never eat that thing again. But if you eat something that kills you, there’s not much room left for learning, is there?

That’s the problem in Australia, where the endangered northern quoll ( Dasyurus hallucatus ), a small, cat-sized marsupial , has been driven to near-extinction by eating poisonous cane toads ( Bufo marinus ). Now some scientists are trying to help quolls, and maybe other species, by teaching them that cane toads are not food and should be avoided.

[More]



Substack subscription form sign up