Category Archives: Amphibians

Reported plan to move Rosehill racecourse to endangered bell frog habitat surprises conservationists

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Horse racing industry insiders said to be pushing for Sydney track to be relocated to former brickpit in Olympic Park – a sanctuary to an unlikely urban survivor

Conservations have expressed surprise at reported plans to move Sydney’s Rosehill racecourse to a historic brickpit at Olympic Park, which is home to a colony of endangered green and golden bell frogs.

The plan has reportedly been devised by racing bosses, alongside the deal between the Australian Turf Club and the New South Wales government to redevelop the famous track into new housing, as well as two additional metro stations.

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Cinnamon frog species in ‘perilous state’ successfully bred in UK

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Froglets from species classed as near-threatened arrive for the second time at Cotswolds wildlife park

A frog species that is in a “perilous state” due to an infectious disease has been successfully bred at a wildlife park in Oxfordshire.

Keepers at the Cotswold wildlife park in Burford have again bred the near-threatened cinnamon frog, four years after it became only the second zoological collection in Europe to breed the species.

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Dominica’s mountain chicken frog disappears in ‘fastest extinction ever recorded’

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Ecological calamity on the Caribbean island demonstrates how quickly wildlife can be destroyed, scientists say

They were once so numerous they were cooked as the national dish of Dominica. Every year, thousands of mountain chicken frogs, roasted with garlic and pepper, were eaten by islanders and tourists.

Two decades later, the animal – one of the world’s largest species of frog – has in effect disappeared from the Caribbean island. A series of ecological disasters has reduced its former healthy, stable population of hundreds of thousands of animals to a total of 21 frogs, according to scientists’ most recent survey.

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Frogs in Puerto Rico croak at a higher pitch due to global heating

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Call of the coquí frog is affected by rising temperatures, scientists find

Frogs in Puerto Rico are croaking at a higher pitch due to global heating, scientists have found.

The frogs appear to be decreasing in size at warmer temperatures, which causes their croaks to become high pitched. If the trends continue, the heat could become too much for the sensitive amphibians to survive successfully, researchers have said.

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‘Unique’ frogs in NSW rainforests feared locally extinct after black summer bushfires

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Pugh’s mountain frog, which has been ‘evolving since Australia was connected to Antarctica’ was worst affected of nine threatened species, researchers say

Several frog species are feared to be locally extinct in parts of New South Wales after the black summer bushfires, a survey of amphibian populations has found.

Scientists conducted a survey of 411 sites in north-east and south-east NSW, monitoring 35 frog species for 18 months after the 2019-2020 bushfire season.

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NSW on alert after more than a dozen cane toads found an hour north of Sydney

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Agriculture minister says size of colony in Mandalong indicates there could be many more of the toxic intruders in the area

New South Wales is on alert after more than a dozen cane toads were found on a private property an hour’s drive north of Sydney.

The state’s Department of Primary Industries (DPI) biosecurity helpline confirmed a report had been made by a member of the public on 19 September after a “number” of cane toads were found at a property in the rural town of Mandalong, west of Lake Macquarie.

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Frog back from the dead helps fight plans for mine in Ecuador

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Campaigners say if copper mine gets go-ahead in cloud forest, the longnose harlequin, once thought to be extinct, will be threatened again

Reports of the longnose harlequin frog’s death appear to have been greatly exaggerated – or, at least, premature. The Mark Twain of the frog world is listed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as extinct, which may come as a surprise to those alive and well in the cloud forests of Ecuador’s tropical Andes.

Known for its pointed snout, the longnose harlequin frog (Atelopus longirostris) is about to play a central role in a legal battle to stop a mining project in the Intag valley in Imbabura province, which campaigners say would be a disaster for the highly biodiverse cloud forests.

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‘Gamechanging’ £10m environmental DNA project to map life in world’s rivers

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eBioAtlas programme aims to identify fish, birds, amphibians and land animals in freshwater systems from the Ganges to the Mekong

Concealed by the turbid, swirling waters of the Amazon, the Mekong and the Congo, the biodiversity of the world’s great rivers has largely remained a mystery to scientists. But now a multimillion-pound project aims to describe and identify the web of life in major freshwater ecosystems around the world with “gamechanging” DNA technology.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and UK-based environmental DNA (eDNA) specialists NatureMetrics have launched a partnership to take thousands of water samples from freshwater river systems like the Ganges and the Niger delta to identify the fish, birds, amphibians and land animals that live in and around them.

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Australian scientist discovers ‘chocolate frog’ in New Guinea swamps

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Litoria mira has been declared a new species, despite looking very similar to the Australian green tree frog

An Australian scientist has discovered a new species of frog, the “chocolate frog”, in rainforest swamps of New Guinea.

Steve Richards, a frog specialist at the South Australian Museum, first found the spotted the cocoa-coloured creature in 2016 in incredibly challenging habitat.

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One of world’s rarest toads bred in captivity for first time in Manchester

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Programme may help to ensure the survival of the critically endangered variable harlequin toad

One of the world’s rarest toads has been bred in captivity for the first time, thanks to the scientists at Manchester Museum.

The critically endangered variable harlequin toad, Atelopus varius, lives deep in the central American rainforests of Panama and Costa Rica, breeding only in turbulent streams filled with stones and boulders on which they lay their eggs.

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‘Who doesn’t love a turtle?’ The teenage boys on a mission – to rewild Britain with reptiles

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At 17, they were meant to be taking their A-levels this year. But Harvey Tweats and Tom Whitehurst have a big ambition: to replace the toads, frogs and lizards we have lost

The new enterprise taking shape on a strip of derelict land beside a garden centre in Leek, Staffordshire, would be extraordinary at any time. But the large pond, greenhouses, cabins and homemade enclosures that will comprise this particular startup are positively miraculous given that it is driven by two 17-year-olds, both studying for their A-levels in the middle of a pandemic.

Childhood friends Harvey Tweats and Tom Whitehurst are on a mission – to rewild Britain by restoring reptile and amphibian species that are either virtually extinct or have been extinct for centuries in this country. Their company, Celtic Reptile & Amphibian, will soon open what the pair believe will be the country’s largest outdoor breeding facility for reptiles and amphibians. They hope it will be the first step in restoring lost species so that British ponds, lakes and wetlands once more resound to the croak of pool frogs and agile frogs as well as other once-common lizards and frogs. In the long term, Tweats and Whitehurst hope that the European pond turtle (which they source from Moldova) and the Aesculapian snake, already unofficially released in a couple of UK sites, may be embraced as new native species after being absent from the country for thousands of years.

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Tiny frog species among series of finds in Andean ‘sky islands’

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‘Ecological Swat team’ discovers 20 unknown species in Bolivia including viper and butterfly

An “ecological Swat team” has discovered 20 previously unknown species in the misty cloud forests and cascading waterfalls that flank Bolivia’s Zongo valley.

Among the animals found were a minuscule 10mm-long frog, a pit viper, two metalmark butterflies and an adder’s-mouth orchid. The pristine forests are just 30 miles (48km) from the capital, La Paz, but the expedition also rediscovered the devil-eyed frog, seen just once before, and a satyr butterfly not seen for nearly a century. Alongside these were threatened species including the spectacled bear and the channel-billed toucan.

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The amphibians of Alhambra – a photo essay

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Its stunning Moorish architecture makes the Spanish monument one of the world’s most visited. But photographer Ugo Mellone found the resident frogs, toads and newts just as fascinating

The Alhambra, which sits on a hill in Granada, Andalucía, is the only preserved palatine city of the Islamic period and a Unesco world heritage site. Once the residence of the Nasrid sultans, it is one of the most visited national monuments in the world.

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Why glass frogs have see-through skin becomes clear in study

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While colour of body changes little, legs are more translucent to help amphibians to blend in

The mystery of why glass frogs have see-through skin has been solved, scientists say: the unusual feature is a type of camouflage.

Glass frogs are found in tropical Central and South America, and get their name from their skin.

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Battle to save frogs from global killer disease

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Amphibians are under attack from multiple pathogens, say experts

Frogs, salamanders, and toads across the world are now under attack from a widening range of interacting pathogens that threaten to devastate global amphibian populations.

That is the stark warning of leading zoological experts who will gather this week in London in a bid to establish an emergency plan to save these endangered creatures. “The world’s amphibians are facing a new crisis, one that is caused by attacks by multiple pathogens,” said Professor Trent Garner of the Zoological Society of London, which is hosting the conference. “We desperately need to devise strategies that can protect them.”

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Deadly skin-eating fungal disease wipes out 90 amphibian species in 50 years

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Study reveals extent of chytrid fungus and how devastating it has been for frog, toad and salamander species worldwide

A deadly disease that wiped out global populations of amphibians led to the decline of 500 species in the past 50 years, including 90 extinctions, scientists say.

A global research effort, led by the Australian National University, has for the first time quantified the worldwide impact of chytridiomycosis, or chytrid fungus, a fungal disease that eats away at the skin of amphibians.

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