![]() In Panama, scientists are returning to sites where just a few years ago they observed frogs in abundance. And they might not be coming back, unless scientists in extinction hot spots such as Panama succeed in their audacious bid to breed the rarest of the rare in captivity in amphibian arks. Where there was once a crazy cacophony of frog song, all day, all night, there is now a spooky quiet. In the pristine tropical forests of the world, the waters still run clear and clean, and the jungle is, as ever, a riot of green, grasping life. The little victims? Their pores clog, and they die of a heart attack. It is like a cheesy horror movie, but real. The villain is a rather extraordinary fungus, an amphibian version of a case of athlete’s foot from hell, with an impossible name, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, which scientists call “Bd,” a virulent, lethal fungus that has spread around the globe. Central American countries such as Panama are suffering a catastrophic decline. In what may be the greatest disease-driven loss of biodiversity in recorded history, hundreds of frog species around the world are facing extinction.įar from being obscure, many of the frogs threatened at the checkout counter are Class A Number One amphibians - the kinds of jewel-colored frogs that adorn postage stamps and Smithsonian calendars and that biologists consider to be keystone species in their environments, no less important than otters or coral or bees, in their way.įrogs in the western United States are threatened, and Australia, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean have been especially hard hit. Because the thing that is killing the frogs is still out there.
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