5-Month Mission To Confirm Whether 100 Frog Species Extinct Finds Exactly 4 Still Alive - BBC

[hatrack]

A mission to discover whether any of 100 amphibian species believed to be extinct are still alive has ended with few successes to report. The five-month project took researchers to 21 countries; but only four of the targeted 100 were found.

Researchers describe these as "glimmers of hope" in a group of animals severely threatened by changing land use, disease, pollution and climate change.

Particularly galling was the failure to find the golden toad of Costa Rica. This beautiful and iconic animal has not been seen since 1989 - killed off, it is thought, by the fungal disease chytridiomycosis.

The project team had previously announced the rediscovery of three species - the Mexican cave splayfoot salamander (last seen in 1941), the Mount Nimba reed frog from Ivory Coast (last seen in 1967), and the Omaniundu reed frog from Democratic Republic of Congo (1979).

EDIT

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12484316

[jberryhill]

1. Scientists further report those four taste great