(Image: Peter Lipton)
FROGS struggle to capture the public鈥檚 imagination. Perhaps conservationists should make this their poster child: the gloriously freakish fringe tree frog (Cruziohyla craspedopus). It looks like it belongs in or a . In fact, this individual lives in something almost as magical: , 鈥渢he life raft of the frogs鈥�.
Set up by Ecuador鈥檚 government in 2005, the facility aims to provide a safe haven for frogs, which are being wiped out all over the world. Chytrid disease 鈥� spread by a fungus 鈥� has caused extinctions and declines in hundreds of species of amphibian. What is really scary about this fungal enemy is that saving a rainforest from destruction won鈥檛 necessarily save the frogs that live there.
Advertisement
Balsa de los Sapos aims to insure against frog loss. Its scientists collect amphibians 鈥� sometimes the last known individuals of their species 鈥� and keep them in temperature-controlled, fungus-free 鈥渓ife rafts鈥� (see photo). When they die, their DNA is stored. 鈥淢aybe those species will be brought back to life in the future with new cloning technologies,鈥� says director Andres Merino-Viteri.
Back to the fringe tree frog鈥� I wish I could report that it can speak, or has a magic stone in its mouth, but it鈥檚 simply a rarely seen, unthreatened frog that lives in the high canopy of the Amazon. It is big for a tree frog, growing up to 87 millimetres long, and is found in a range of colours, from green to blue to purple. Actually, I can live with those qualities for my poster frog.
This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淧rince among frogs鈥�
