According to set of observations made in Italy, toads can predict earthquake and seismic activities.
It is hard to objectively and quantifiable study how animals respond to seismic activity, in part because earthquakes are rare and unpredictable. Some studies have been done on how domestic animals respond, but measuring the response of wild animals is more difficult. Even those that have been shown to react, such as fish, rodents and snakes tend to do so shortly before an earthquakes strikes, rather than days ahead of the event.
The study on toads predicting earthquake was done around the time earthquake of 6.3 magnitude stuck the L’Aquila city of Italy, in April 2009.
It was observed that toads started behaving oddly about 5 days before the earthquake actually stuck. Five days before the earthquake, the number of male common toads in the breeding colony fell by 96%. That is highly unusual for male toads: once they have bred, they normally remain active in large numbers at breeding sites until spawning (female producing eggs) has finished. But, they first scattered and then started disappearing. Male toads usually stay at the breeding sites until spawning is complete, but 96% of them abandoned the pool five days before the quake and numbers remained low until 10 days afterwards. It is though still unclear that how toads sense impending seismic activity. In addition, the number of paired toads at the breeding site also dropped to zero three days before the quake. And no fresh spawn was found at the site until the last aftershock.
Toads may be the best candidate for earthquake predicting animals, but repeat evidence is unlikely to be forthcoming soon. Testing this hypothesis would be very difficult, given the rarity and unpredictability of earthquakes.
Related posts:
Posted in 
Tags: 
