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According to Robin Moore, an amphibian expert working with the environmental group Conservation International, ten new species of amphibians were recently spotted in the mountains of the Darien region in Columbia (on the Panama border). These included various kinds of poisonous frogs, glass frogs, rain frogs, one harlequin frog and one salamander species
Newfound Columbia-dwelling frogs might seem meaningless and distant to us, but this discovery is much more important to the world than one would think. Two big reasons are as follows:
- Frogs have such delicate and permeable skin; they are sensitive to environmental changes and are most likely to respond first. This makes them a perfect scientific gauge for climate change.
- Frogs feast on insects like mosquitoes, which in turn, help minimize the spread of diseases that these insects typically carry like malaria and dengue fever, to just name two.
With one-third of all the world’s amphibians on the brink of extinction, this discovery also comes as a sign of hope in an Indigenous-populated area that faces threats from deforestation due to wood extraction, cattle ranching, illicit crop cultivation, hunting, and mining.
Conservation International hopes that the discovery will help in declaring Columbia’s mountainous Darien region protected—a boon for the native population, the frogs and indirectly—us!
Learn more at Conservation International.
More on Frogs:
Humans are Eating Too Many...Frogs
Frog and Toad are Friends: A Biodiversity Story-
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