Yes, amphibians have it tough right now.
But there's some good news. Litoria castanea, the yellow-spotted bell frog, had not been seen in Australian wild since the 1970s and was assumed extinct. That changed last year when a fisheries conservation officer, searching for an endangered fish species, caught a glimpse of one and led a government herpetologist to an undisclosed stream where they discovered a population of about 100 adults.
Maybe there's hope for
Rheobatrachus silus. That's the gastric brooding frog, another Australian species which is famous as an example of the lengths to which amphibians have gone to brood their eggs. In
R. silus, the female swallows 20 or so fertilized eggs, which develop within her stomach for 6-7 weeks, after which the young frogs simply crawl out of her mouth. The female does not feed during that period, and the production of gastric enzymes and acids shuts down. Unfortunately, the gastric brooding frog hasn't been seen since 1983. But who knows - maybe this is the year for the resurrection of extinct Australian amphibians.
Yes, amphibians have it tough right now. But there's some good news. Litoria castanea, the yellow-spotted bell frog, had not been seen in Australian wild since the 1970s and was assumed extinct. That changed last year when a fisheries conservation officer, searching for an endangered fish species, caught a glimpse of one and led a government herpetologist to an undisclosed stream where they discovered a population of about 100 adults.
Maybe there's hope for Rheobatrachus silus. That's the gastric brooding frog, another Australian species which is famous as an example of the lengths to which amphibians have gone to brood their eggs. In R. silus, the female swallows 20 or so fertilized eggs, which develop within her stomach for 6-7 weeks, after which the young frogs simply crawl out of her mouth. The female does not feed during that period, and the production of gastric enzymes and acids shuts down. Unfortunately, the gastric brooding frog hasn't been seen since 1983. But who knows - maybe this is the year for the resurrection of extinct Australian amphibians.
I was actually thinking about the evolution of the female to slow down the gastric enzymes and acids for the young to survive.
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