NANTOU COUNTY (Taiwan) • Toads are a symbol of prosperity and good fortune in Taiwan, but the unexpected discovery of an invasive species has officials and environmentalists scrambling to contain its spread.

With flashlights in hand and shielded by protective gloves, dozens of volunteers from the Taiwan Amphibian Conservation Society worked through the night searching rice fields and vegetable plots for their quarry - the cane toad.

There should be no reason for these large and highly toxic amphibians to exist in Chaotun, a township in the foothills of Taiwan's central mountain range.

Cane toads are indigenous to South and Central America and while they have wrought a famously destructive path through places like Australia and the Philippines, they had not been recorded in Taiwan.

That was until a few weeks ago when a local resident discovered some large amphibians hanging out in her community vegetable garden and uploaded a photograph online, a move that sparked an immediate toad hunt. "A speedy and massive search operation is crucial when cane toads are first discovered," Dr Lin Chun-fu, an amphibian scientist at the government-run Endemic Species Research Institute told Agence France-Presse as he explained why conservationists have since rushed to find and remove any cane toads.

"They are very big and they have no natural enemies here in Taiwan," he added.

Soon after the photo was uploaded, Ms Yang Yi-ju, an expert at National Dong Hwa University, sent a group of volunteers from the Amphibian Conservation Society to investigate. They arrived at the vegetable garden and were shocked to find 27 toads in the immediate vicinity.

She identified the interlopers as Rhinella marina thanks to the large partoid glands behind the ears where cane toads secrete a dangerous poison.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE