The cane toad, also known as the giant neotropical toad or marine toad, is a large, terrestrial true toad native to South and mainland Central America, but which has been introduced to various islands throughout Oceania and the Caribbean, as well as Northern Australia. It is a member of the genus Rhinella, which includes many true toad species found throughout Central and South America, but it was formerly assigned to the genus Bufo.
Quolls are carnivorous marsupials native to Australia and New Guinea. They are primarily nocturnal and spend most of the day in a den. Of the six species of quoll, four are found in Australia and two in New Guinea. Another two species are known from fossil remains in Pliocene and Pleistocene deposits in Queensland. Genetic evidence indicates that quolls evolved around 15 million years ago in the Miocene, and that the ancestors of the six species had all diverged by around four million years ago. The six species vary in weight and size, from 300 g (11 oz) to 7 kg (15 lb). They have brown or black fur and pink noses. They are largely solitary, but come together for a few social interactions such as mating which occurs during the winter season. A female gives birth to up to 30 pups, but the number that can be raised to adulthood is limited by the number of teats (6–7). They have a life span of 1–5 years.
Brian Timothy Finn is a New Zealand singer, songwriter, musician, and composer. He is best known as a founding member of Split Enz. Finn founded the band in 1972 with Phil Judd and served as lead singer and principal songwriter. Following Judd's departure in 1977, he was joined by brother Neil. Finn wrote or co-wrote some of the band's best-known songs, including "I See Red" and "Six Months in a Leaky Boat". While still a member of Split Enz, he began a solo career, scoring the two hits "Fraction Too Much Friction" and "Made My Day" in 1983; he left the band in early 1984, briefly returning for their farewell tour later that year.
Gordy is a 1994 American family comedy-drama film directed by Mark Lewis, about a livestock piglet named Gordy who searches for his missing family. He experiences the lives of others who are part of the film's side plots, including traveling country music singers Luke McAllister and his daughter, Jinnie Sue; and lonely boy Hanky Royce whose mother, Jessica, is engaged to a sinister businessman named Gilbert Sipes. Gordy changes lives for the people he encounters due to their ability to understand him. The film was distributed by Miramax Films under their Miramax Family Films imprint.
Duttaphrynus melanostictus is commonly called Asian common toad, Asian black-spined toad, Asian toad, black-spectacled toad, common Sunda toad, and Javanese toad. It is probably a complex of more than one true toad species that is widely distributed in South and Southeast Asia.
A nature documentary or wildlife documentary is a genre of documentary film or series about animals, plants, or other non-human living creatures, usually concentrating on video taken in their natural habitat but also often including footage of trained and captive animals. Sometimes they are about wildlife or ecosystems in relationship to human beings. Such programmes are most frequently made for television, particularly for public broadcasting channels, but some are also made for the cinema medium. The proliferation of this genre occurred almost simultaneously alongside the production of similar television series which is distributed across the world.
The Wind in the Willows is a British stop motion animated television series that was originally broadcast between 1984 and 1988, based on characters from Kenneth Grahame's 1908 novel The Wind in the Willows and following the 1983 feature-length pilot film.
Chris Noonan is an Australian filmmaker and actor. He is best known for the family film Babe (1995), for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director and Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Rogue is a 2007 Australian independent horror film written, produced and directed by Greg McLean, about a group of tourists in Australia who fall prey to a giant, 25 ft (7.6 m) man-eating saltwater crocodile. It stars Michael Vartan, Sam Worthington and Radha Mitchell.
Mark Lewis is an Australian documentary film and television producer, director and writer. He is famous for his film Cane Toads: An Unnatural History and for his body of work on animals. Unlike many other producers of nature films, his films do not attempt to document the animals in question or their behaviors but rather the complex relationships between people and society and the animals they interact with.
Densey Clyne was an Australian naturalist, photographer, writer, and documentarian. She is especially well known for her studies of spiders and insects.
The cane toad in Australia is regarded as an exemplary case of an invasive species. Australia's relative isolation prior to European colonisation and the industrial revolution, both of which dramatically increased traffic and import of novel species, allowed development of a complex, interdepending system of ecology, but one which provided no natural predators for many of the species subsequently introduced. The recent, sudden inundation of foreign species has led to severe breakdowns in Australian ecology, after overwhelming proliferation of a number of introduced species, for which the continent has no efficient natural predators or parasites, and which displace native species; in some cases, these species are physically destructive to habitat, as well. Cane toads have been very successful as an invasive species, having become established in more than 15 countries within the past 150 years. In the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, the Australian government listed the impacts of the cane toad as a "key threatening process".
James FrazierACS was an Australian inventor, naturalist and cinematographer who invented the Frazier lens. He won many Australian and international awards for his work, including an Academy Award for Technical Achievement and an Emmy Award. He is known for filming documentaries for David Attenborough together with his long-time collaborator Australian naturalist, photographer and writer Densey Clyne.
Richard Shine is an Australian evolutionary biologist and ecologist; he has conducted extensive research on reptiles and amphibians, and proposed a novel mechanism for evolutionary change. He is currently a Professor of Biology at Macquarie University, and an Emeritus Professor at The University of Sydney.
Greig Fraser, ACS, ASC, is an Australian cinematographer who studied at the RMIT University.
Cane Toads: The Conquest, a 2010 documentary film by Mark Lewis, tracks the inexorable decades long march of the invasive cane toad across Australia, a "sequel of sorts" to his 1988 cult classic, Cane Toads: An Unnatural History. It is described as an "irreverent" blend of "history, nature footage, re-enactments and colorful testimony," documenting what is widely considered to be one of Australia's biggest environmental disasters through its effect on people. It was filmed in 3D.
Michael J. Tyler dubbed "The Frog Man", was an Australian herpetologist and academic, noted for his research on frogs and toads, chiefly with the University of Adelaide.
Matthew Simon Drummond is an Australian film director, screenwriter and visual effects supervisor.
Ben McNeill is an Australian film producer of feature and documentary films, including the 2023 Australian comedy drama film A Savage Christmas, which was nominated for Best Indie Film at the 13th annual AACTA Awards. In 2018, he co-produced organ transplant feature documentary Dying to Live (2018), which follows those awaiting an organ on the organ transplant list, and which was shortlisted for a 2018 AACTA Award.
