Scientists have birthed a ‘super cannibal’ that never grows up. Could it be key to combating Australia’s cane toad menace?

A genetically engineered albino cane toad, whose tadpoles never grow up and are voracious eaters of toad eggs. Photograph: Chris Jolly

The toad’s eyes seemed to glow red, its warty and poison-soaked skin – normally splodged in browns – instead a porridge of creamy whites. This albino toad was produced by a team of scientists with one foot in a Sydney university laboratory and the other in a research station on the vast tropical savannahs and wetlands far away to the north near Humpty Doo.

It was September 2023 and for the man who dreamed it into being, the toad was but an opening act in a radical new play against one of the world’s worst invasive species.