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Photo stories Weird Nature Saving frogs in the Amazon
Photo stories Weird Nature Saving frogs in the Amazon
| Saving frogs in the Amazon |
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By Emanuele Biggi and Francesco Tomasinelli Updated 24/03/2008 Amphibians landed the first time about 400 million years ago and found a rich and not so demanding habitat to live in, so they rapidly reached big body sizes and the top of the food chain, remaining enthroned on it for about 100 millions years. At the end of the Permian new land invaders - the crocodiles "prototypes" - began to compete with Amphibians both for food and place to live. This phenomenon led to the miniaturisation of Amphibians and their spreading to colder regions, where crocodiles couldn't survive for their impossibility to hibernate. Since that first radiation this animals changed their lives thousand times, powering up their skin with venoms and antimicrobial substances and adapting to nearly every habitat in the globe except the poles. Now they are probably facing their worst period ever. Hundred of species are close to extinction or they already disappeared. The human species is probably the main cause of their drop: climate changes, habitat loss and the spreading of the chytrid fungus are devastating many populations. This last disease, that causes skin damage and suffocation to the infected animal, is even a bigger mistery: it's widespread all over the world but it has the same genetic code everywhere. This probably means that it had a very fast propagation in a few years and humans are probably the main vector. South America have been heavily attacked by the fungus in the last years: three quarters of Atelopus toads are already extinct and many species, like Telmatobius frogs and other Central and South American Amphibians, are in the same danger. Hylomantis lemur, the Lemur Leaf frog is disapperaring from most sites and all the higher altitude populations are already extinct. The Peruvian Amazon is one of the hot spot of world biodiversity, both in cloud forests and into the flat, lush lowlands. Over there, into the Manu National Park and into the Madre de Dios area, we had the opportunity to document the effort of different researchers, like Alessandro Catenazzi and Rudy von May, to save Amphibian populations. They compare data form the past with actual data collected in the field and try to understand which is the impact of the Chytrid fungus. Despite some bad news new species are discovered almost each year and the Amphibian population remains in good health in some parts of this region, with the disease limited to mountain areas. On frogs see also A forest tale: the spider and the frog Many thanks to Alessandro Catenazzi and his team, Rudy Von May, Mo Donnelly, Nigel and Renata Pitman and all the crew of the CICRA Los Amigos biological station in the Peruvian |
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16-12-2011 Two new short stories in "Strange but true" with tiger beetles and devil flower mantis. Updated Quirimbas Islands reportage 30-4-2011 New scientific exhibition Predatori del microcosmo at Museo Regionale di Scienze Naturali, Torino, until 27-6-2011
03-02-2011 New scientific exhibition Copioni e copiati for Arte e Scienza in Piazza 2011, in Bologna, until 13-02-2011. 08-1-2011 New photo gallery on Iran and persian architecture 05-12-2010 New scientific exhibition Predatori del microcosmo at Museo Tridentino di Scienze Naturali, Trento, until 13-2-2011 29-11-2010 New gallery Professione naturalista, on people working in natural sciences 28-10-2010 New scientific exhibition Copioni e copiati, for Festival della Scienza 2010, at Castello d'Albertis, Genova, until 5-12-2010
13-09-2010 New gallery on Valley of Butterflies, Rhodes, Greece |
About this site
| Welcome to Isopoda.net, website of Italian biologist and science photographer Francesco Tomasinelli. My favourite photographic subjects are unusual animals, travels and scientists at work, but I shoot many other topics, like sports, events and corporate pictures. I work as scientific consultant too, mainly on ecology topics. |
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