[thedoc (OP)]

Geologists around the world have the electronic equivalent of a glass to
the wall, listening to vibrations from inside the planet that herald the an
Earthquake. But it turns out that they're not the only ones tuning in -
toads do too!

Read the whole story on our website by clicking here

  

[Don_1]

I think there are many anecdotes telling of animals fleeing the scene of a natural disaster before it happens. It was said that animals in Sri Lanka were noted to have moved inland before the 2003 tsunami struck.

Perhaps amphibians get even clearer signs of impending disaster due to water being such a good conductor of any tremors. Fish probably do too, but they can't run for the hills.

[CliffordK]

A tsunami, of course, can follow an earthquake, so running for the hills is a survival tactic, and certainly could be part of natural selection, especially on an island or peninsula. 

I would ask how dangerous quakes are to toads and their spawn.  Perhaps eggs or tadpoles get washed up on shore, or out to where they would become fish food, so spawning just before an earthquake would in fact pose a risk to the offspring.

Many large earthquakes are preceded by foreshocks.  I would have to ask about foreshocks for the Italian earthquake.  The problem is that the foreshocks are not very predictive of the large quakes magnitude, or timing.  However, again, if it was a survival issue, perhaps it could help disperse animals.

For example, the 2011 Japan earthquake was preceded by a magnitude 7.2 foreshock, which could easily have been interpreted as the main quake, followed by several strong aftershocks, but instead it was clearly a foreshock preceding a 9.0 quake a few days later.

[grizelda]

So any good seismological station is going to need a bunch of wired-up toads as an early warning system. Goldfish would be cheaper. Couldn't they just transfer the genes? What would the transgenic creature be called? A goad?