- Email: [email protected]
Miyazaki monster lives in the Life Raft of the Frogs
Aperture
00 June Month 2013 2013 26 | NewScientist | 15
Prince among frogs FROGS struggle to capture the public’s imagination. Perhaps conservationists should make this their poster child: the gloriously freakish fringe tree frog (Cruziohyla craspedopus). It looks like it belongs in Pan’s Labyrinth or a Hayao Miyazaki fantasy. In fact, this individual lives in something almost as magical: Balsa de los Sapos, “the life raft of the frogs”. Set up by Ecuador’s government in 2005, the facility aims to provide a safe haven for frogs, which are being wiped out all over the world. Chytrid disease – spread by a fungus – has caused extinctions and declines in hundreds of species of amphibian. What is really scary about this fungal enemy is that saving a rainforest from destruction won’t necessarily save the frogs that live there. Balsa de los Sapos aims to insure against frog loss. Its scientists collect amphibians – sometimes the last known individuals of their species – and keep them in temperature-controlled, fungusfree “life rafts” (see photo below). When they die, their DNA is stored. “Maybe those species will be brought back to life in the future with new cloning technologies,” says director Andres Merino-Viteri. Back to the fringe tree frog… I wish I could report that it can speak, or has a magic stone in its mouth, but it’s simply a rarely seen, unthreatened frog that lives in the high canopy of the Amazon. It is big for a tree frog, growing up to 87 millimetres long, and is found in a range of colours, from green to blue to purple. Actually, I can live with those qualities for my poster frog. Rowan Hooper
Photographer Peter Lipton www.peterlipton.nl
0015 Month June 2013 | NewScientist | 27
00 June Month 2013 2013 26 | NewScientist | 15
Prince among frogs FROGS struggle to capture the public’s imagination. Perhaps conservationists should make this their poster child: the gloriously freakish fringe tree frog (Cruziohyla craspedopus). It looks like it belongs in Pan’s Labyrinth or a Hayao Miyazaki fantasy. In fact, this individual lives in something almost as magical: Balsa de los Sapos, “the life raft of the frogs”. Set up by Ecuador’s government in 2005, the facility aims to provide a safe haven for frogs, which are being wiped out all over the world. Chytrid disease – spread by a fungus – has caused extinctions and declines in hundreds of species of amphibian. What is really scary about this fungal enemy is that saving a rainforest from destruction won’t necessarily save the frogs that live there. Balsa de los Sapos aims to insure against frog loss. Its scientists collect amphibians – sometimes the last known individuals of their species – and keep them in temperature-controlled, fungusfree “life rafts” (see photo below). When they die, their DNA is stored. “Maybe those species will be brought back to life in the future with new cloning technologies,” says director Andres Merino-Viteri. Back to the fringe tree frog… I wish I could report that it can speak, or has a magic stone in its mouth, but it’s simply a rarely seen, unthreatened frog that lives in the high canopy of the Amazon. It is big for a tree frog, growing up to 87 millimetres long, and is found in a range of colours, from green to blue to purple. Actually, I can live with those qualities for my poster frog. Rowan Hooper
Photographer Peter Lipton www.peterlipton.nl
0015 Month June 2013 | NewScientist | 27