Defenders of Wildlife Blog

The real purpose of leap day may be to keep the calendar aligned with the seasons, but here at Defenders of Wildlife, we’d like to believe the day is designed to honor our favorite leapers. To celebrate, we’ve put together some fun facts about frog leaping.

• Not all frogs can leap, or even hop. The desert rain frog (Breviceps macrops) has legs that are too short to hop. Instead, it walks.
• Male frogs of the genus Pipa are known to defend their territory by jumping at and then wrestling other males.
• The New Guinea bush frog (Asterophrys turpicola) takes jump attacks one step further: before it jumps at a strange frog, it inflates itself and shows off its blue tongue.
• Stumpffia tridactyla are normally slow-moving critters, but when they’re startled they can abruptly jump up to 8 inches. That doesn’t sound very far, but these little guys are less than half an inch long!
• The Fuji tree frog (Platymantis vitiensis) may be the leaping stuntman of the frog world. Each time it leaps, it twists in the air—sometimes even 180 degrees—to throw predators off its trail.
• The Larut torrent frog (Amolops larutensis) gets its name from a nifty leaping trick: it can jump into a fast-moving stream and back to its usual perch, the underside of a rock, without being affected by the current.
• Similarly, the parachuting red-eyed leaf frog (Agalychnis saltator) gets its name because it speeds to mating opportunities by jumping from trees with finger-and toe-webbing spread wide.
• The record for longest jump by an American bullfrog (Rana catesbeiana) recorded in a scientific paper is a little over 4 feet. But scientists who went to the Calaveras County Fair, which Mark Twain’s short story made famous for frog jumping, found that more than half the competitors bested that record—and one jumped more than 7 feet in one leap!
• The Guinness Book of World Records doesn’t include any frogs for their leaping ability. But it does track human performance in frog jumping (jumping while holding one’s toes). There are records listed for the longest frog jump and the fastest frog jumping over 10 and 100 meters.

Get your frog fix this leap day by checking out this  frogtastic video and song written by Alex Culbreth (produced by  Panama Amphibian Rescue and Conservation Project)

Below is some exciting news from our friends over at the National Zoo!  Defenders of Wildlife, the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and 5 other zoos around the country have partnered on The Panama Amphibian Rescue project, created to capture frogs that are directly in the path of chytrid fungus, an epidemic which is wiping out frog populations across the globe, and keep them safe until they can be once again be returned to the wild.

National Zoo and Partners First to Breed Critically Endangered Tree Frog

As frogs around the world continue to disappear—many killed by a rapidly spreading disease called chytridiomycosis, which attacks the skin cells of amphibians—one critically endangered species has received an encouraging boost. Although the La Loma tree frog, Hyloscirtus colymba, is notoriously difficult to care for in captivity, the Panama Amphibian Rescue and Conservation Project is the first to successfully breed this species.

“We are some of the first researchers to attempt to breed these animals into captivity and we have very little information about how to care for them,” said Brian Gratwicke, international coordinator for the project and a research biologist at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo, one of nine project partners. “We were warned that we might not be able to keep these frogs alive, but through a little bit of guesswork, attention to detail and collaboration with other husbandry experts—we’ve managed to breed them. The lessons we’re learning have put us on target to save this incredible species and our other priority species in Panama.”

Nearly one-third of the world’s amphibian species are at risk of extinction. The rescue project aims to save more than 20 species of frogs in Panama, one of the world’s last strongholds for amphibian biodiversity.

The rescue project currently has 28 adult La Loma tree frogs and four tadpoles at the Summit Municipal Park outside of Panama City, Panama. In addition to the La Loma tree frog, the project also has successfully bred the endangered Limosa harlequin frog, Atelopus limosus. Keepers will continue to carefully monitor the tadpoles of both species.

Nearly one-third of the world’s amphibian species are at risk of extinction. The rescue project aims to save more than 20 species of frogs in Panama, one of the world’s last strongholds for amphibian biodiversity. While the global amphibian crisis is the result of habitat loss, climate change and pollution, chytridiomycosis is likely at least partly responsible for the disappearances of 94 of the 120 frog species thought to have gone extinct since 1980.

“Although the outlook for amphibians is grim, the rescue project’s recent developments give us hope for these unique Panamanian species,” said Roberto Ibáñez, local director of the project and a scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, one of the project’s partners. “We are creating what amounts to an ark for these animals so that their species may survive this deadly disease. We’re also looking for a cure so that someday we can safely release the frogs back into the wild.”

Of Panama’s six harlequin frog species, five are in collections at the Summit Zoological Park and the El Valle Amphibian Conservation Center in El Valle, Panama. One species, the Chiriqui harlequin frog, A. chiriquiensis, from western Panama, is likely extinct. The other species range from being extinct in the wild—the Panamanian golden frog, A. zeteki—to being endangered.

The mission of the Panama Amphibian Rescue and Conservation Project is to rescue amphibian species that are in extreme danger of extinction throughout Panama. The project’s efforts and expertise are focused on establishing assurance colonies and developing methodologies to reduce the impact of the amphibian chytrid fungus so that one day captive amphibians may be reintroduced to the wild. Project participants include Africam Safari, Panama’s Autoridad Nacional del Ambiente, Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, Defenders of Wildlife, El Valle Amphibian Conservation Center, Houston Zoo, Smithsonian’s National Zoological Park, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Summit Municipal Park and Zoo New England.

For more information, photos and a new video about this work, visit www.amphibianrescue.org.

It’s almost Halloween, so you might be expecting zombies to invade at any moment. But the real threat is from exotic wildlife that could be headed your way! These foreign creatures often carry disease and disrupt native plant and animal communities, and we need your help to stop them.

The invasion of exotic wildlife poses a serious threat to local ecosystems that are ill-equipped to fend off foreign species that can kill native wildlife and carry disease. Now the problem is growing more acute with the pervasiveness of the deadly chytrid fungus that is decimating amphibian species across the world.

This red-eyed tree frog could be the next victim of the deadly chytrid disease plaguing amphibian species across the Americas. International trade of certain species is already being regulated under CITES to slow the spread of disease.

From Panama to California, this mysterious disease is eliminating salamanders and frogs in many of their most important habitats. Like other invasive species and exotic diseases, the fungus is often spread by the transport of plants and animals from far-away places. Poor screening has allowed these invaders to cross our borders with ease. It’s time to beef up security by implementing better screening practices and restricting the importation of exotic species that are known carriers of disease. The health of our native plants and animals depends on it!

Watch the short video above to learn more about the threat of foreign invaders like pet pythons, Gambian rats, Asian carp, and European starlings, then read below what you can do to stop the spread of exotic diseases like the chytrid fungus.

Take action to stop the spread of exotic disease

Right now the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service is seeking input on a petition to stop the spread of this amphibian disease, and they need to hear from you! The petition puts forth a rule requiring all live amphibian species and their eggs to be screened for disease. Only those certified as chytrid-free would be allowed to enter the country or cross state lines.

Help protect America’s native wildlife from these foreign invaders by urging USFWS to screen amphibians imported into the United States. You can submit your comments by visiting http://www/regulations.gov and entering Docket No. FWS-R9-FHC-2009-0093. This information period will close on December 16, 2010.

Defenders of Wildlife's Mark Cheater holds a Toad Mountain harlequin frog project researchers collected on a recent expedition to the Darien. Cheater's story on the Cerro Sapo expedition is scheduled to run in the winter issue of Defenders magazine.

The toughest work week of my life. That’s how I described my Panama trip to colleagues at Defenders of Wildlife, after returning in late June from a week in the field with scientists from the amphibian rescue project. I was documenting their work for an upcoming story in Defenders magazine.

I got my first hint of how challenging the assignment would be when I first contacted project director Brian Gratwicke last winter about sending someone along on a rescue expedition. “Send us somebody young and fit!” he said. Youth is overrated, I told myself. I go to the gym regularly and hike, bike and kayak on weekends—so I qualified as fit. But just to be sure, several weeks before the trip I stepped up my workouts to a daily regimen of running and weight training, and lengthened my weekend hiking forays.

By the time I left for Panama in late June, I had lost several pounds and could comfortably carry a full backpack for an afternoon in the mountains near my home in Washington, D.C. Plus, this wasn’t my first such trip—on previous assignments I had accompanied field biologists as they tracked wolves in Idaho, wild cats in northern Mexico, and rare salamanders in the Appalachians.  How hard could this trip be?

Harder than I imagined.

In the Beginning…

The first day in the field began with a 3 a.m. wake-up call in Panama City, packing vehicles in the dark and then driving four-and-a half-hours into the Darien region of southern Panama—a place notorious for drug runners, armed rebels and assorted other outlaws. We were reminded of these hazards frequently, as dour, armed soldiers stopped us at checkpoints to look at our passports, examine our equipment and quiz us about our destination and intentions. By mid-morning, we reached a small port town and then transferred our gear into a motorboat for a two-hour trip to Garachine, a coastal village on the northwestern edge of Darien National Park.

Moving uphill into the jungle became harder, but I soldiered on, sweating through my shirt in the heat and humidity.

A Toad Mountain harlequin frog sits on a mossy boulder alongside the San Antonio River. Project researchers collected nearly 80 healthy Toad Mountain harlequin frogs on their June expedition to the Darien.

In Garachine, we hired native Embera people as guides and porters, distributed most of our gear between them and their horses, and set out in the steamy early afternoon heat up the San Antonio River to our destination—Cerro Sapo, or Toad Mountain. Within an hour of starting our trek, my hiking boots had turned into muddy weights around my ankles—waterlogged from repeated river crossings and slathered in the brown ooze that passes for a trail in this area. Moving uphill into the jungle became harder, but I soldiered on, sweating through my shirt in the heat and humidity.

After about five hours of hiking, the trail ended—and the best way upriver was to literally go up the river. Hiking in the water was doable when the San Antonio was shallow and gravelly, but such placid stretches were rare as we moved up the mountain—they were interrupted frequently by slick, algae-covered boulders and stones; narrow, watery ledges next to deep pools; or impassable waterfalls, which had to be circumvented by hacking through trees, vines, palms and other vegetation in the surrounding jungle with machetes.

Then it got dark.

What had been a demanding hike now became dangerous. Even though we all had headlamps or flashlights, they couldn’t illuminate every slippery rock or deep pool or twisted vine. One misstep or slip could mean a badly twisted ankle or bruised limb—or much worse. And the nearest doctor was a six-hour hike back down the river. I gritted my teeth and swallowed my pride, carefully calibrating every step with my hiking pole like an octogenarian with a cane, or, when I didn’t trust my footing, sitting down and sliding over rocks or down muddy embankments on my backside. It couldn’t possibly get worse than this, I reasoned.

One of several poisonous fer de lance snakes encountered by the Cerro Sapo expedition team. The fer de lance is one of the most dangerous snakes in the world.

That’s when we saw the snake.

We were making one of our frequent bushwhacking forays around an impassable section of the river when one of our porters stopped suddenly and said “culebra!”—Spanish for ‘snake.’  It wasn’t just any snake that he had nearly stepped on. This yellowish-brown creature in the light of our headlamps was a fer de lance, one of the most dangerous snakes in the world. Edgardo Griffith, one of the biologists on the expedition, carefully moved the viper out of our path and into the darkness with his snake hook—a metal pole with a crook at the tip, around which snakes will instinctively wrap themselves. This particular fer de lance was a juvenile, he said, trying to reassure me. “It probably couldn’t kill you—you’d just lose the leg or arm where it bit you.”  I didn’t find much comfort in his words.

Camp Sweet Camp

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity in the dark, we sloshed across a gentle section of the river and climbed about 50 feet up a steep, muddy embankment. There we found a slightly less steep, muddy section of jungle that had been cleared of vegetation and roofed with several blue plastic tarps suspended from nearby trees.  This was the Cerro Sapo base camp—our home for the next few days. Someone cooked up a dinner of rice and beans—the first real meal of the day. My stomach was in knots from the stress of the previous eight hours of hiking, but I reasoned that I should eat—and then discovered I could barely open my mouth because I had been clenching my teeth so tightly my jaw muscles had frozen.  I pushed a few spoonfuls into my gullet and collapsed in my tent.

What had I gotten myself into? Could I survive another four days of this?

Bob Chastain of the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo searches for Toad Mountain harlequin frogs in and around the San Antonio River.

The short answer is that I did survive. The following days brought many more long difficult hikes upstream, finding and capturing the small, colorful harlequin frogs that were the focus of this rescue expedition. We encountered several more fer de lances along the way, along with whip scorpions and other large spiders, and a wide variety of biting ants, gnats, mosquitoes, midges and flies.  One or more of the biting insects attacked my feet, causing them to swell up to twice their normal size, adding a new challenge to the already difficult task of walking. And there was mud everywhere and on everything—on clothes, skin, equipment, dishes, utensils, tents.

If successful, Toad Mountain harlequin frogs may be spared the fate of the dozens of other species that have succumbed to the chytrid epidemic.

But none of us got seriously injured or sick. And, despite the challenges we encountered in the jungle, we managed to bring back nearly 80 healthy Toad Mountain harlequin frogs to the rescue facility at Summit Zoo in Panama City. The frogs have proved to be free of the chytrid fungus that is devastating amphibians in so many other parts of Panama—and worldwide. Now begins the long task of breeding these animals and keeping them safe in captivity until a cure for the fungal epidemic is developed. If successful, Toad Mountain harlequin frogs may be spared the fate of the dozens of other species that have succumbed to the chytrid epidemic.

So, yes, it was the toughest week in my career—but also one of the most fascinating and rewarding.

Mark Cheater is editor of Defenders magazine, the quarterly membership magazine of Defenders of Wildlife. His story on the Cerro Sapo expedition is scheduled to run in the winter issue of the magazine.

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