CAPE TOWN — Western leopard toads have been listed as endangered since 2016. Andrew Turner, scientific manager for CapeNature, the government body that manages protected areas and conservation in South…
Encompassing some 7,400 square kilometers, or 2,860 square miles, along the Honduran border, Nicaragua’s Bosawás Biosphere Reserve is the largest biosphere reserve in Central America. It’s home to the Miskito…
Deep within the cloud forests of the San Martín region of Peru lie two places so high, cold and remote that they remained virtually unexplored for decades. In 2022, and…
In the late 1980s, something began to go wrong in places that were supposed to be safe. Protected cloud forests, buffered from chainsaws and bulldozers, started losing animals that had…
ARVOREZINHA, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil — The admirable little red-bellied toad is the size of a thumb, but it has achieved giant feats: In 2014, it prevented the construction…
Earlier this year, 350 endangered mountain yellow-legged frogs hopped into their new home in Bluff Lake in Southern California’s San Bernardino Mountains. It’s the latest step in a long-running battle…
Measuring a bit more than 20 millimeters (0.8 inches), Pratt’s poison frog (Colostethus pratti) is not the kind of frog that would get attention. Although part of the Dendrobatidae family, known…
In 1996, when herpetologist Rafe Brown accompanied a few biologists to the Philippine island of Mindanao to study frogs, they heard a cacophony near their campsite. In a puddle that…
A first look at Argentina’s Somuncurá Plateau reveals features somewhat predictable for a Patagonian steppe: shrubs, grass, plains, and rocky outcrops. Only the occasional volcanic peak breaks the monotony of…
Where are the salamanders hanging out? Answering that question has been Jake Kushner’s mission — especially in the face of a proposed project by an energy company that will lay…
Brazil is home to the world’s greatest diversity of amphibians: Of the more than 8,000 species known worldwide, some 1,200 are found in the country, mainly in the Amazon and…
The frog’s loud croaking turned out to be a call to its own demise. The researchers walking along the steep muddy bank on a rainy November day in 2022 in…
KATHMANDU — Professor Karan Bahadur Shah is a distinguished researcher from Nepal, renowned for his extensive work in herpetology, the study of amphibians and reptiles. His career spans several decades…
Researchers have developed simple, sun-heated shelters that allow frogs to raise their body temperatures and fight off infections. These frog “saunas” may bring hope for populations threatened by a deadly…
“We (humans) are trying to get under the skin of other species, trying to understand them on their terms. And the more we succeed, the more we discover a natural…
When lost or assumed-extinct species are rediscovered, they often face a long rocky road to population recovery — especially if they’re an amphibian.
When the last Rabbs' fringe-limbed treefrog (Ecnomiohyla rabborum) died in 2016 at the Atlanta Botanical Garden, its extinction garnered little media attention. Environmental journalist Jeremy Hance, a longtime Mongabay reporter…
Over the past 4 billion years, lifeforms have evolved into the spectacular array of species that now inhabit the planet. While many species radiated into extensive families of closely related…
BANDUNG, Indonesia — Nearly 50 years have passed since Djoko Tjahjono Iskandar began his early scientific expeditions to uncover new species hidden across Indonesia. In that time, Djoko has described…
Scientists have described three new frog species that dwell exclusively in the spiky leaves of pandan trees in Madagascar's eastern rainforests. Lead researcher Hugh Gabriel, from the Technical University of…
Eight years ago, a research team from the National Museums of Kenya stumbled upon an unfamiliar frog on the eastern flanks of Mount Kenya. The small green toad has now…
Imagine you’re leading an expedition in the depths of a forest. You discover a species of frog that piques your interest. Conventional rules of taxonomy dictate that you capture the…
The Tepequém frog (Anomaloglossus tepequem) used to be seen in abundance in streams in the Serra do Tepequém, in the state of Roraima. Endemic to Brazil and this specific locality,…
The mountain chicken isn’t a chicken at all, but a huge frog three times as heavy as a can of soup and about as long as a large banana. These…
A new study published in Nature has found that more than 8,000 amphibian species are at a substantially higher risk of extinction than they were since the last assessment in…
While PFAS impacts on human health are well known, scientists are also finding severe impacts on wildlife, including hawksbill turtles, American alligators, Arctic kittiwakes, hooded seals, striped bass, bottlenose dolphins and other species.
DHAKA — Studies on the hazards of microplastics have tended to focus on their presence in the food chain and risks to human health. A new study now shows they…
Nestled within the lofty Cardamom Hills, which forms part of the Western Ghats UNESCO World Heritage Site, lies the picturesque town of Munnar in the southern Indian state of Kerala.…
Sometimes, our current mass extinction crisis can be represented by the loss of a single individual. On April 21, locals spotted a 93-kilogram (205-pound) body in the waters of Dong…
Tropical forests awaken the senses. The scent of moist earth, the feel of sticky, humid air, and the sight of an array of colorful life-forms are visceral delights. But perhaps…
At a conference on herpetology — the branch of zoology studying reptiles and amphibians — at the end of the 1980s, researchers from numerous countries began to tell of disappearing…
Up in the pure water streams of the tropical Andes dwells a fantastic little creature painted with patches of color. This small wonder, the Rio Negro stream tree frog (Hyloscirtus…
