Deforestation is so rampant throughout Madagascar, an island far larger than California, that it’s easy to forget the impact of tree clearance in any one specific area of the country…
In 1993, a lone stream frog was discovered once but never found again in the wild. Herpetologists thought the frog species went extinct before it could be studied. Then, last…
JAMBI, Indonesia — Armed with a flashlight, 43-year-old Musadat walks slowly through the thick and dense Harapan forest, one of the last remaining expanses of lowland tropical rainforest on the…
Becca Brunner was standing chest-deep in an Ecuadoran rainforest stream, holding up audio equipment as she recorded the high-pitched call of an elusive glass frog. But then she encountered something…
All told, this was a pretty bleak year. The COVID-19 pandemic brought tragedy and confusion; fires razed parts of Australia, the Amazon, and the Western U.S.; and the world is…
In this well-trodden world, the discovery of a species new to science is an exciting event, a glimmer of the uncharted riches of biodiversity still hidden around the globe. “Every…
Rising across remote stretches of southeast Cambodia, the Cardamom Mountains harbor dense tropical rainforest, much of it native growth carpeting the range’s wet slopes. Due to its remoteness, the vast…
In 2019, the last known 14 Loa water frogs (Telmatobius dankoi) were evacuated from a swiftly vanishing stream in northern Chile. Now, after more than a year of meticulous care, they…
Last recorded in 1968, Megaelosia bocainensis, a frog known for its rounded snout and granular skin, was thought extinct until researchers tracked down its environmental DNA in Brazil’s São Paulo state.
A unique rainforest island lying 270 kilometers (168 miles) off Papua New Guinea is once again at the center of a tug-of-war between multiple extractive industries vying for its rich…
ANTANANARIVO, Madagascar — Traditionally called radaka, large frog species endemic to Madagascar are appreciated for their delicate taste, which is similar to chicken. Although people have hunted the frogs for…
HORTON PLAINS, Sri Lanka — Is an hourglass frog still an hourglass frog if it doesn’t have the distinctive marking on its back that gives it its name? That’s one…
Well organized global crime networks are pulling millions of tropical birds, fish, turtles and mammals out of the Amazon — a lucrative trade that is destroying ecosystems and putting public health at risk.
A team of Ugandan herpetologists has just returned from near their country's border with Kenya. They were searching for a glimpse of a critically endangered frog that hasn't been recorded…
The COVID-19 pandemic is giving “cancel culture” a new meaning. Weddings, graduations, academic conferences, sports events and birthday parties are all postponed until further notice. Among the laundry list of…
Tyrone Ping had ample opportunity to admire reptiles and amphibians as a child, and this initial herpetological hobby has led to a life-long fascination. At some point when he was…
A new species of frog endemic to the Western Ghats, a mountain range in India that is considered a global biodiversity hotspot, is the first new addition to the genus…
Jaime Luis Arias grew up on the southern slopes of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. An isolated coastal pyramid-shaped massif in northern Colombia, the Sierra Nevada is one of…
Rain drenched a team of ecologists in the Kaieteur National Park in Guyana as they scrambled to keep their sound equipment dry. They were recording a male golden rocket frog…
PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea — The upstart deforestation over the past year and a half that's sidling up to Pochon Lili’s land has him worried. "As a landowner, I'm…
Not all species "lost to science" are truly lost. For nearly 30 years, the starry night harlequin toad (Atelopus arsyecue), a tiny amphibian, named for its glossy black skin with…
Protecting frogs against the invisible killer called chytrid was never going to be easy. The fungus has already wiped out more species than any other known disease. But a recent…
While wandering through northwestern Myanmar in 2016, a group of scientists stumbled on hundreds of huge tracks in the ground. According to a new paper in the journal Mammalia, these…
The world’s largest known living frog species doesn’t build ordinary nests. It does a lot of heavy lifting, sometimes moving large stones and rocks weighing more than half its weight…
The Con X Tech Prize just announced its second round will be funding 20 finalists each with $3,500 to create their first prototypes. Some 150 teams submitted ideas that use…
In November 2017, Joice Ruggeri and her colleagues came upon a pond with several dead tadpoles and a few dead fish in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, in…
When collecting a DNA sample from a species in the wild just isn’t possible — it’s elusive, it may disturb the animal, or a host of other reasons — field…
The global trade of products that come at the expense of tropical forest is driving many primate species closer to extinction, a new study suggests. The research, published June 17…
Just before Pope Francis released Laudato Si’, an encyclical, or formal letter from the pope, on the environment, on May 24, 2015, global concern for the environment seemed to be…
Warmer temperatures are fanning the spread of a deadly disease in frogs, a new study has found. Teasing apart the complex dynamics of the effects of climate change on how…
