Just days after the yet-to-be-confirmed spotting of a 3 metre salt-water crocodile on Stradbroke Island, a giant cane toad weighing in at 2.7kg has been found near Airlie Beach.

Rangers conducting track work in Conway National Park were shocked to find a monster cane toad beside the Conway Circuit last week.

Due to its sheer size and weight of 2.7kg, the colossal cane toad, dubbed Toadzilla, is believed to be a female and may be the largest ever found on record.

Forced to stop their vehicle for a snake slithering across the track, Ranger Kylee Gray let out an audible gasp when she saw the enormous cane toad.

“I reached down and grabbed the cane toad and couldn’t believe how big and heavy it was,” she said.

“We dubbed it Toadzilla and quickly put it into a container so we could remove it from the wild.”

Cane toads primarily feed on insects, but rangers believe a cane toad the size of Toadzilla most likely has a far more diverse diet.

“A cane toad that size will eat anything it can fit into its mounth, and that includes insects, reptiles and small mammals,” said Gray.

“I’m not sure how old she is, but cane toads can live up to fifteen years in the wild, so this one has been around a long time.”

Toadzilla has been gaining a lot of interest among ranger staff, as well as the Queensland Museum which is interested in taking her due to the potential record breaking size.

Introduced into Queensland in 1935 as a way to control the cane beetle, by 1999 the cane toad was recognised by the Commonwealth Government as a key threatening process to the nation under the national  Environment Biodiversity and Conservation Act 1999. 

Potentially fatally poisonous to wildlife, cane toads have caused local extinctions of some of their predators and compete with native species for sheltering sites and food resources.

While cane toads can grow to 26cm in length and weigh up to 2.5kg, specimens of this size are extremely rare.