Directed by Mark Lewis • 1988 • Australia
Starring Tip Byrne, Glen Ingram, H. W. Kerr
Mark Lewis takes the nature documentary into new realms of the humorous, surreal, and downright bizarre with this stranger-than-fiction tale of the ultimate environmental self-own. The cane toad—Bufo marinus, a species native to Central America—was imported by the sack-load to Australia in 1935 in an attempt to rid the country of the greyback beetle, which was rapidly destroying the sugarcane crop. The toads adapted beautifully to their new surroundings. Problem was, the beetle could fly and they couldn’t. What the cane toad is unusually proficient at, however, is making more cane toads—thousands upon thousands more. CANE TOADS: AN UNNATURAL HISTORY tells the wild story of this amphibious assault—warts and all.
Up Next in Surreal Nature Films
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Microcosmos
Directed by Claude Nuridsany and Marie Pérennou • 1996 • France
Starring Jacques Perrin, Kristin Scott ThomasExperience the strange, beautiful, surreal world of insects as never before in this singular, artful nature documentary, which employs specially created cameras and lenses—developed over...
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The Natural History of the Chicken
Directed by Mark Lewis • 2000 • United States
While most know chicken as a dinner-plate staple, few pause to consider this bird’s many virtues. In this fascinating and gently comic documentary, director Mark Lewis delves into the under-recognized complexities of this seemingly simple animal. Thr...
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The Sea Horse
Directed by Jean Painlevé • 1933 • France
Jean Painlevé’s classic underwater short THE SEA HORSE uses dreamlike imagery to detail the lives of the titular upright-swimming creatures.
