Juliet and friends found for Romeo the lonely water frog
Five frogs found on Bolivian expedition funded through lonely hearts profile
Damian Carrington Environment editor
@dpcarrington
Tue 15 Jan 2019 12.49 EST
For 10 years, Romeo, the last known Sehuencas water frog on the planet, led a solitary life in a conservation centre in Bolivia. Now scientists have found him a Juliet.
The adult female was among five frogs found on an expedition into Bolivia’s cloud forest. The $25,000 search was funded by donations gathered after Romeo’s keepers posted a lonely hearts profile on the dating website Match.com on Valentine’s Day last year.
“Now the real work begins – we know how to care for this species in captivity, but now we will learn about its reproduction,” said Teresa Camacho Badani, of the Museo de Historia Natural Alcide d’Orbigny in Cochabamba, who led the expedition. The scientists hope to prevent the extinction of the frog by breeding new generations and eventually releasing them back into the wild.
The frog was once abundant in the streams and ponds of Bolivia’s cloud forest, but there has been a precipitous decline of all water frog species in Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru due to a combination of climate change, habitat destruction, pollution, a deadly amphibian disease and the introduction of alien trout species that eat frog eggs.
More:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jan/15/juliet-and-friends-found-for-romeo-the-lonely-water-frog
Sehuencas water frog
= new reply since forum marked as read
