icon caret-left icon caret-right instagram pinterest linkedin facebook twitter goodreads question-circle facebook circle twitter circle linkedin circle instagram circle goodreads circle pinterest circle

iWild: For more see iWild.org

Not Gone Yet

From Australia comes the great news that Today’s Endangered All-Star, the Yellow-Spotted Bell Frog—while not really yellow and purportedly sounding more like a motorcycle than a bell—is still with us. While specialists had feared that the species, not seen since 1973, may have succumbed to a fungus that wreaked havoc on Aussie frogs, it has in fact made the great leap from Extinct to Critically Endangered. The Sydney Morning Herald reports that government researcher Luke Pearce, while searching for a native species of fish in 2008, stumbled instead across the missing frogs: ‘We heard this bell frog call,” Pearce told the Herald. ”[We] went down looking for it and actually nearly stepped on it. It was quite amazing. This frog was just waiting there to be found.” Pearce recently returned to the area in New South Wales to confirm the find, and he was able to count around 100 in the area. He also brought back six tadpoles to start a breeding program at Sydney’s Taronga Zoo. While the species is not out of the woods yet, this surviving population may exhibit resistance to the fungus, a characteristic that might allow successful reintroduction throughout its habitat.
Be the first to comment