For ages, mankind has craved a tool that can provide early warning of that terrifying moment when the earth begins to shake. But if a scientific paper published on Wednesday is confirmed, we may at last have found one. The best hope yet of an earthquake predictor could lie in a small, brown, knobbly amphibian, it suggests. The male common toad (Bufo bufo) gave five days’ warning of the earthquake that ravaged the town of L’Aquila in central Italy on April 6, 2009, killing more than 300 people and displacing 40,000 others, the study says. Biologist Rachel Grant of Britain’s Open University embarked on a toad-monitoring project at San Ruffino lake, 74 kilometres (46 miles) north of L’Aquila, 10 days before the 6.3-magnitude quake struck. Her two-person team observed the site for 29 days, counting toad numbers and measuring temperature, humidity, wind speed, rainfall and other conditions. By March 28, more than 90 male toads had mustered for the spawning season, but two days later, their numbers suddenly fell, Grant reports. By April 1 — five days before the quake — 96 percent of the males had fled. Several dozen ventured back […]