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Young World
Rediscovered
COMPILED BY R. KRITHIKA
PHOTO: REUTERS
SAN LORENZO HARLEQUIN FROGS: In Colombia.
News from Colombia has boosted the morale of scientists trying to save rare amphibians from a deadly fungal disease. Two frog species, Santa Marta Harlequin frog and the San Lorenzo Harlequin frog, thought to be extinct were rediscovered in a Sierra Nevada reserve. The frogs are now rated critically endangered since there have been no sightings for 14 years. "These finds show there is still hope ... a lot of these species were pretty much written off," Claude Gascon of Conservation International told Reuters. Last month, another species, a painted frog, was rediscovered in Colombia. Experts are not sure if the frogs have escaped the disease or if the area is so far free. The disease had spread up to 25 miles of the site of the latest finds. Apart from problems like pollution, climate change, deforestation and rapid urbanisation, amphibians are highly vulnerable to chytridiomycosis, a fungal disease that makes their skin thick. The normally porous skin absorbs oxygen. Scientists studying amphibians are trying to fund captive breeding in zoos and aquariums but releases in the wild are not possible because of the disease. Gascon also pointed out that some species that have vanished could have been useful to humans.
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