Latest Frogs Stories

Dr Amber Teacher, studying a post-doctorate at Royal Holloway, University of London, has discovered evidence that a disease may be causing a behavioral change in frogs. The research, published in the August edition of Molecular Ecology, has unearthed a surprising fact about our long-tongued friends: wild frogs in the UK may be changing their mating behavior.Dr Teacher conducted her research with colleagues from the Institute of Zoology and Queen Mary, University of London. The research...

Pollution, climate change, invasive species and habitat destruction are killing Europe's native reptiles and amphibians, wildlife experts said. Fifty-nine percent of all European amphibians and 42 percent of reptiles are declining and face even greater risk than European mammals and birds, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature said. In all, 23 percent of Europe's amphibian species and 21 percent of its reptile species have been classified as threatened and added to the...

A fatal fungus that has killed hundreds of different kinds of frogs in the US is now harming five different frog species in the Philippines, experts announced on Wednesday.A nationwide survey conducted by US and Filipino scientists discovered that the Philippines is the third country in Asia to be affected by the chytrid fungus.The fungus, which targets the skin of frogs and distresses the arrangement of tadpoles' body parts, is also in Japan and Indonesia.The Luzon striped frog, one of the...

Scientists are rescuing dozens of one of the world's most rarest species of amphibians, the mountain chicken frog. The frogs are being airlifted to safety from Montserrat in a final attempt to save it from the deadly chytrid fungus, which is ravaging their shrinking habitat and threatening extinction worldwide. Montserrat is a tiny British Caribbean territory that is one of only two sites where the once-prevalent mountain chicken is found, but hundreds of the frogs have been killed in just...

The "mountain chicken frog" of the tiny Caribbean island of Montserrat is the latest victim of a lethal fungal disease that is devastating amphibian populations throughout the world.British researchers say that just two small pockets of mountain chicken frogs (Leptodactylus fallax) are all that remain disease-free on the entire island.  Conservationists are working to take the surviving frogs, some of the world's largest, into captive breeding programs.Experts believe the chytrid...

Colombian scientists say they've discovered 10 new species of amphibians in the mountainous Tacarcuna area near the border with Panama. The newly discovered species include a spiky-skinned, orange-legged rain frog, three poison dart frogs and three glass frogs, so called because their transparent skin can reveal internal organs. The scientists, led by herpetologists from Conservation International in Colombia and ornithologists from the Ecotropico Foundation, identified approximately 60...

A new study found that amphibian populations at Yellowstone National Park are in steep decline. Researchers point to climate change, which is causing the wetlands where animals breed and live to dry out.The park, which stretches over 9,000 sq km in the western U.S., shares land in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho. U.S. congress granted Yellowstone national park status on 1 March 1872.The park's vast forests and grasslands are also home to grizzly bears, wolves and bison.However, all eyes are on the...

Streams that once sang with the croaks, chirps and ribbits of dozens of frog species have gone silent. They're victims of a fungus that's decimating amphibian populations worldwide.Such catastrophic declines have been documented for more than a decade, but until recently scientists knew little about how the loss of frogs alters the larger ecosystem. A University of Georgia study that is the first to comprehensively examine an ecosystem before and after an amphibian population decline has...

The nation's most endangered species, the Mississippi gopher frog, has faced challenges in producing offspring, but this year, nature gave them a break.The frogs breed in shallow ponds that often dry up in the summer, stranding tadpoles.  Over the last 10 years, summers have been hot, and dry, leading to very little reproduction for the species.In 1998, scientists studying Glen's Pond in coastal Harrison County, Mississippi, saw 161 froglets hop out of the pond.  This year scientists...

More than half the frogs, toads, newts and other amphibians in Europe could be wiped out in less than 50 years, British scientists said. In a report to the Zoological Society of London, researchers said Thursday that the most threatened species live in southern Europe, The Guardian reported. The Mediterranean climate is expected to become significantly hotter and drier, which is bad news for the Mallorcan midwife toad and the brook newt of Sardinia. "Amphibians are the lifeblood of many...