Lost Frogs May Be Extinct, Sign Of 'The Sixth Great Extinction' (PHOTOS)

Scientists around the world have come up short after an unprecedented attempt to locate 100 species of "lost" frogs, salamanders, and caecilians. These amphibians have all been missing for over a decade, and now scientists fear they are extinct.

The Search for Lost Frogs, organized by Conservation International, the IUCN Amphibian Specialist Group, and Global Wildlife Conservation, involved 126 researchers seeking to document the existence of threatened species.

But after a five-month search, only four out of 100 missing species have been located. Conservationists believe that these shockingly low numbers should be a signal to countries that greater efforts must be taken to protect environmentally sensitive species. Over 30 percent of amphibians are threatened with extinction due to habitat loss and a deadly fungus.

The four located species included the Cave Splayfoot Salamander of Mexico (last seen in 1941), the Mount Nimba Reed of the Ivory Coast (last seen in 1967), the Omaniundu Reed Frog of Democratic Republic of Congo (last seen in 1979), and the Critically Endangered Rio Pescado stubfoot toad of Ecuador (last seen in 1995).

While the four discoveries offer a glimmer of hope, the future may be grim. As CI's amphibian expert Dr. Robin Moore remarks, "Rediscoveries provide reason for hope for these species, but the flip side of the coin is that the vast majority of species that teams were looking for were not found. This is a reminder that we are in the midst of what is being called the Sixth Great Extinction with species disappearing at 100 to 1000 times the historic rate... We need to turn these discoveries and rediscoveries into an opportunity to stem the crisis by focusing on protecting one of the most vulnerable groups of animals and their critical habitats."

All photos and credits courtesy of the Lost Frogs/Amphibian Campaign.

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REDISCOVERED Campaign's "top 10" list to be found: #6 Rio Pescado Stubfoot Toad (Atelopus balios) Ecuador. This was the only species found out of the "top 10" most wanted. Rediscovered after 15 years in Ecuador by Eduardo Toral-Contreras and Elicio Tapia. Researchers feared that the deadly amphibian Chytrid fungus had wiped out this species along with many other closely related species in Ecuador. This find is significant and very encouraging, offering an opportunity to protect this attractive and rare species. © Eduardo Toral-Contreras Lost Frogs/Amphibian Campaign

REDISCOVERED

Campaign's "top 10" list to be found: #6 Rio Pescado Stubfoot Toad (Atelopus balios) Ecuador. This was the only species found out of the "top 10" most wanted.

Rediscovered after 15 years in Ecuador by Eduardo Toral-Contreras and Elicio Tapia. Researchers feared that the deadly amphibian Chytrid fungus had wiped out this species along with many other closely related species in Ecuador. This find is significant and very encouraging, offering an opportunity to protect this attractive and rare species.

© Eduardo Toral-Contreras
Lost Frogs/Amphibian Campaign

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Comments

[Captain Hindsight]

11:08 AM on 02/21/2011

If god decides it's time to piss on his frogs there is nothing we can do about it.

[AnthropologistAmongApes]

01:53 PM on 02/21/2011

I that satire, or a cheerful disdain for other life?

[Captain Hindsight]

06:15 PM on 02/21/2011

Satire, Acid Rains change the Ph of the environment.
Where does Acid Rain come From. The Big Sky Pilot or the Flying Spaghetti Monster?

[Rus Viking]

11:00 AM on 02/22/2011

On a different subject, possibly less contentious and out of curiosity, what do you think of this guy?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/20/exhibition-spotlight-clar_n_825780.html#243319

[altosax]

02:01 PM on 02/21/2011

Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life.

[Captain Hindsight]

06:23 PM on 02/21/2011

So why then is so dang popular?

[AnthropologistAmongApes]

07:08 PM on 02/21/2011

LoL

[BigBlue9999]

10:53 AM on 02/20/2011

Canaries in a coal mine.

[ToniQ]

04:07 AM on 02/19/2011

I really liked the bots in Silent Running.

[MarkInEugene]

10:02 PM on 02/18/2011

Frogs are an indicator species. They are delicate creatures with permeable bodies and are quite susceptible to pollution in our lakes rivers and streams. That they are declining in number should be a wake up call to humanity.

So far though, we continue to populate this finite pearl-beyond-price with arrogance and ignorance.

[TommyMcCarthy]

10:27 PM on 02/18/2011

You know Mark....my now-grown kids learned that very fact (and so, I RE-learned it)....on a field trip to the W. Eugene wetlands when they were students at Roosevelt Middle School.

A rhetorical question:

When their great-great-grandchildren look back on this period when so much scientific information was readily available to us about climate change, species extinction, and other threats to our planet .....
But our broken (and corrupt) political system prevented us from taking action (or even acknowledging the threats)......

Do you think they will be:
1:) Disappointed by our inaction...because they are inconvenienced?
2:) Angered by it...because they face catastrophic & life threatening consequenses?
or..
3:) Silent....because they are extinct as well?

I can't "fan" you again...or I would
Hoping you are well
TM

[amleth]

02:01 AM on 02/19/2011

Excellent post with outstanding rhetoric.

Fanned and faved.

Peace, best wishes.

[ninetailedfox]

06:58 AM on 02/18/2011

I hope the christians are happy. this proves that bible thumpers hate nature.

[David Durbin]

02:58 AM on 02/19/2011

Some of them actually want to be hated, to fulfill their "prophecy" of persecution. So for some of the crazier ones, destroying the planet is part of that. But probably most Christians still understand the whole stewardship thing, even if they don't give it the attention it warrants. They can be reached. And there are some Christians who live very low impact lives, those who strive to follow St. Francis and Dorothy Day, for example.

[silverwolf13]

01:32 AM on 02/18/2011

Frogs eat flies and mosquitoes. ("Time's fun when you're having flies," Kermit Frog) Mosquitoes carry diseases such as malaria and West Nile Fever, and flies carry a few filthy diseases. So a decrease in frogs means an increase in mosquitoes that carry malaria and West Nile Fever and a corresponding increases in those diseases and others. Then subtract the little brown bats being killed by white nose fungus and add the mosquitoes they would have eaten. Then you have many Americans getting some tropical germs and parasites for which they have no immunity. Could be a replay of what happened when Europeans first met Native Americans and gave them their colds and smallpox--but with role reversal--this time the Anglos bite the dust, along with everybody else.

[Danek Greori]

12:55 AM on 02/18/2011

For the uninformed: Our planet, lovely as it is, periodically decides to wipe out a significant portion of the life forms inhabiting it (sometimes the cosmos helps). As humans we can and have caused many things to occur, but it is hubris to believe that every single natural disaster and extinction that occurs on our planet are somehow caused by our actions. Nature didn't decide to go on a vacation and the the work to us. It's still there doing it's job, and that sometimes (or rather often) involves wiping out a form of life on this planet.

[silverwolf13]

01:35 AM on 02/18/2011

True enough. But our pesticides and pollution and greenhouse gases do have their effects.

[teagle01]

01:47 AM on 02/18/2011

Im sure more than we know. Even if Nature goes on vacation. We dont!

[cadawa]

03:41 PM on 02/18/2011

The planet doesn't decide anything. Natural law law does.
You ignore it at your own peril.
It's hubris to believe that corporate pollution and wasteful life styles are NOT making the planet uninhabitable, first for the frogs and ultimately for us.
Their demise is a warning signal of more pervasive damage within the system.
That damage will be amplified by their absence which will affect all the other plants and animals that depended upon them.

[AnthropologistAmongApes]

06:34 PM on 02/18/2011

For a "sentient" species capable of knowing better, there is no excuse for wiping out entire forms of life. To chalk this event to "nature" doing its thing is an escape from personal responsibility and ecological literacy.

[mudshark12]

12:41 AM on 02/18/2011

I saved the photos of these very pretty frogs, they are large enough to "set as desktop background" on a computer. It has been around 20 years since I last saw a frog, there are numerous comments by others attesting to the same thing.

I hold out hope that they will make a comeback and I know of some scientists in Brazil who have set up an indoor sanctuary to preserve them. I can still remember when I was a kid listening to them at the lake.

[David Durbin]

01:22 AM on 02/19/2011

I saw a big frog by a water shutoff valve not long ago. Sure don't see as many as I used to, though.

[hazyafternoonsunshine]

11:38 PM on 02/17/2011

From what I have read, the extinction in progress now predates human global impact. It has been going on for a long time. Of course it is of concern, and human post industrial activities may accelerate the natural course, but we may overestimate our own importance and role in the evolutionary process. The take-away for me here is the importance of continuing to fund scientific research.

[cadawa]

05:35 PM on 02/18/2011

I appreciate the polite reasoned tone of your argument but with all due respect you can't have read very much.
The extinction rate is unprecedented and the only thing driving it is human activity.
Of course we should fund science. If for no other reason than to keep corporations from owning the subject with the phony research and the opinions they purchase.
When you read, be sure you check out who is funding the research.
The disingenuious science of vested interest leads well meaning people to think we need more research when what is badly needed is immediate action to preserve critical habitats and their inhabitants.
Once these systems disappear there is no way to rebuild them.

[amleth]

02:04 AM on 02/19/2011

Thank you for this post with critical information about this problem.

Fanned and faved.

Peace, best wishes.

[Titanshanks]

11:15 PM on 02/17/2011

Unfortunately, I don't think it's all that effective to explain to people how important the natural world is. I remember the comment once, more or less, "Why do you go to such lengths to look for rare birds? Can't you see them all on tv?"

The key is getting people to go into nature, and I wonder how much it must happen at a young age. No, some people still won't care, but a lot of people will develop a deeper appreciation for nature and care more about protecting endangered species and beautiful places.

I've wondered whether some sort of organized field trips for kids separated from nature might be a good idea (I know there are a few), but I also wonder whether you'd just get too many people crowding natural parks, and I don't know how effective limited exposure might be.

[cadawa]

06:12 PM on 02/18/2011

Arch Druid David Brower thought the same thing. That's why he started the large format book series. People have to be helped to become aware of the beauty and educated to appreciate its importance.
He also believed that the human psyche needs wild places in which to ground itself. I think he's right. One only needs to take a look at those who call themselves and see that something is frightenly wrong.
Thankfully, some of the basic ideas of ecological science and conservation are being taught early on in many public school systems. That was not the case until Brower and others came on the scene.
The argument corporations use is that sound environmental practices will negatively impact the economy. An amazingly short term vision, given the amount of resources they suck up and a lousy excuse for wrecking the one and only planet we have.
Environmental degradation has enormous costs in human health, diminished fertility of the soil and the destruction of the life support system that makes earth inhabitable.
To date, corporations have externalized most of these costs, forcing the public to pick up the tab for the cost their operations.
If we demand the corporations pay for mitigation, health care, wrongful death and the downstream damage they cause, they'll sing a different tune.

[David Durbin]

01:26 AM on 02/19/2011

Reminds me of the euthanasia chamber in the movie Soylent Green. As a kid in 1973, the idea that nature could only be viewed on screen, as a final goodbye to the world, was truly horrible. But now, when so many kids live so much of their lives in virtual worlds (such as this one, in fact), I wonder how the reaction might differ. We seem to be about halfway there from when that film was released ...

[Titanshanks]

01:47 AM on 02/19/2011

That's a powerful image.

[chickenflu4]

09:36 PM on 02/17/2011

survival of the fittest ! why worry who are lost?

[David Durbin]

01:27 AM on 02/19/2011

I pity you.

[ken607]

08:48 PM on 02/17/2011

TO BAD ITS NOT HUMANS THAT WERE ENDANGERED.

[AmosKnows]

09:19 PM on 02/17/2011

We're next.

[rikster]

09:21 PM on 02/17/2011

soon...

[JayWilliams]

08:21 PM on 02/17/2011

I have not seen a frog in years. I used to see (and hear) them all the time. None. Zip. Nada. It does not take rocket science to know that frogs are rapidly dwindlling.

[AmosKnows]

09:21 PM on 02/17/2011

I lived in Brooklyn NY as a kid - growing up I saw caterpillars, frogs, butterflies, slugs, and worms. As well as all sorts of flowering plants. Today I came back to visit this summer - ZERO. Not a living thing as far as the eye can see. Progress.

[ckevere]

08:21 PM on 02/17/2011

This is direct proof of global warming's early effects. Rising water temperatures are leading to an increase in bacterial and parasitic life in frogs' habitats. Amphibians' skins are semipermeable, allowing more microorganisms into their bodies than their evolutionary path has afforded them to handle. Look at environments that are at the edge of habitability, like deserts and tundra, to see how species are handling these changes. These are canaries in the mine.

[Me atlast]

10:08 PM on 02/17/2011

The good news is that after we've managed to kill off most things, including ourselves, nature will rebound. Us... not so sure about that one....

[ckevere]

12:03 AM on 02/18/2011

Exactly. Sometimes I wish that was the angle a lot of environmentalists speak from instead of a conservation concern angle. Conserve what, the world has been here for ~4.6 billion years, it'll be here long after we're gone. We're gifted to have a habitable place at this point in history, but if we mess with our climate patterns we may be leaving the party a little early. F&F.

[cadawa]

07:33 PM on 02/17/2011

It's not just by by little frog.
Frogs are an indicator species. Their disappearance is a signal of more serious problems threatening entire ecosystem.