A disease that causes mass die-offs in frogs has been found in captive UK populations for the first time, scientists have warned. Severe perkinsea infection (SPI) has caused large tadpole mortality events across the US, and this is the first proof that its geographic range is spreading. Researchers also found the disease-causing microbe in wild and seemingly healthy populations in Panama, where some of the most rapid declines in frog populations globally have occurred. Leer más.
A group of researchers from the University of Jyväskylä and Stanford University were part of an expedition to French Guiana to study tropical frogs in the Amazon. Amphibian species of this region use ephemeral pools of water as their nurseries and display unique preferences for specific physical and chemical characteristics. Leer más.
The government is poised to remove legal protection for some amphibians and reptiles. ARC’s Conservation Director, Jim Foster, attempts to explain an absurd situation and how ARC is opposing the move. Leer más.
The Príncipe giant tree frog Leptopelis palmatus is endemic to the small oceanic island of Príncipe in the Gulf of Guinea. For several decades, this charismatic but poorly known species was confused with another large tree frog species from continental Africa, L. rufus. Phylogenetic relationships within the African genus Leptopelis are poorly understood and consequently the evolutionary history of L. palmatus and its affinity to L. rufus remain unclear. In this study, we combined mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), morphological, and acoustic data for L. palmatus and L. rufus to assess different axes of divergence between the species. Leer más.
Convergence in communication appears rare compared with other forms of adaptation. This is puzzling, given communication is acutely dependent on the environment and expected to converge in form when animals communicate in similar habitats. We uncover deep-time convergence in territorial communication between two groups of tropical lizards separated by over 140 million years of evolution: the Southeast Asian Draco and Caribbean Anolis. Leer más.
