Amphibian Specialist Group, West Asia

Dear all,

I have created a network on yahoo groups for the Amphibian Specialist Group, West Asia, that I am currently chairing.

The group is asgwanet@yahoogroups.com. If you wish to join this group please go to asgwanet-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Riyad Sadek,

Biology Department,

American University of Beirut,

P.O.Box 11-0236

Riad El Solh 1107 2020,

Beirut, Lebanon

Email: rsadek@aub.edu.lb; riyadsadek@yahoo.com

Website: http://staff.aub.edu.lb/~rsadek

DARREN NAISH IS BOTH BIG AND CLEVER

He has managed to get swearing and cryptozoology into a serious piece of work on his increasingly enteraining blog on Science Blogs.

He writes:

It's well known that elephants have a major impact on their environment; indeed, they're what's known as ecosystem engineers. In a new study, Ahimsa Campos-Arceiz, of the University of Tokyo, reports that Asian elephant dung might serve a hitherto unreported role as a microhabitat for certain small frog species. While inspecting Asian elephant Elephas maximus dung piles on Sri Lanka in 2008, Campos-Arceiz was surprised to discover individuals of the microhylid frogs Microhyla ornata and M. rubra and a species of the dicroglossid Sphaerotheca [shown here] hiding inside or under the piles (if you need to know where microhylids fit within the anuran radiation, see the Tet Zoo article here; I haven't got round to covering dicroglossids yet).
Read on »

Darren, dear boy, you are - as always - an inspiration to us all.

http://scienceblogs.com/tetrapodzoology/2009/06/shit_happens_in_title.php

FROM THE ARCHIVES: The golden frogs of Bovey Tracey

Once upon a time, at least according to an old Devon folk story, a poor woodsman lived with his family on the outskirts of the village of Bovey Tracey. Their child was suffering from an unspecified illness and was not likely to live much longer, One night in the middle of a severe thunderstorm there was a knock on the door and a mysterious lady entered demanding shelter and food.

Despite their many misfortunes the woodsman and his family welcomed the mysterious lady, gave her milk and food (which they could ill afford) and a seat by the fire. She then blessed the ailing infant who was miraculously cured, and before vanishing (up a road called to this day Mary Street) she said that so that her benefactors would know this was not a dream, not only would the child be forever cured but that the next day the family would discover a new spring full of crystal clear water and bright golden frogs which were said to have populated the area for many years.

Another piece of interesting supportive evidence for this story is that, to this day in what is still known as Mary Street there is a Holy Well! It can be found embedded in the stone wall opposite Bovey Tracey hospital. Could this be the site of the spring created by the old woodsman`s mysterious visitor?

Unfortunately, although there is some evidence to suggest that this was not its original location and that it was repositioned there a century or so ago,m a quick trip to the Westcountry Studies Library will reap some useful rewards.

According to even the most early maps of the area there are a number opf wells and springs in the close vicinity of where the holy well now stands. Some of them are marked with a cross, which would imply that they were of some special spiritual significance.

So, assuming the golden frogs exist(ed) what were/are they? The concept of brightly coloured amphibians inhabiting the English countryside is not as unusual as one might suppose. Several small pink frogswere found in Gloucestershire in the early 1990s and others have been recorded over the years from Sussex and The Cotswolds.

But Golden Frogs?

In February 1994 local and national newspapers were full of the story of Jaffa, a three year old frog discovered in a garden in Truro. Jaffa was, as his name implies, bright orange. The Westcountry TV News carried a story about him which said that he, and a similarly coloured mate had been released in a secret location. Mark Nicholson of the Cornwall Trust for Nature Conservation revealed that far from being an isolated occurrence these oddly coloured amphibians are popping up all over the place. Ranging in colour from bright orange, through yellow to pale cream, these creatures have been reported from all over the westcountry and even from elsewhere in the UK although they appear to be much rarer.

They turn up each year, and in the early spring of 2000 we found one hopping around in the mud by the dustbins outside our front door! It was a fully grown female of a bright mustard colour and almost immediately laid copious amounts of spawn which, unfortunately proved to be infertile. We kept her for several months until she escaped into the wilderness behind our conservatory where we keep some of our animal collection during the summer months. We hope that the coming years will supply us with more specimens that will help us determine what exactly these creatures are.

Although I am as aware as everyone about the damage that man is doing to the planet on which we live, there is a distressing tendency in these politically correct days to blame all anomalies of nature on the ubiquitous `global warming` or some other plague of the modern age. Whilst not wishing for a moment to deny that these threats exist and a very serious towards the future of all living creatures on the planet, it is, I think, counter productive to blame everything on man`s stupidity. Various commentators including Internet news groups have suggested that these brightly coloured batrachians are the result of a damaged environment. Whilst not denying that the environment is certainly damaged, we have proved that these animals have been around for at least five hundred years and we are determined to find out what they actually are!

For the present however, it is fairly clear that the charming medieval legend of the Golden Frogs of Bovey Tracey might not he so far fetched after all.

GUEST BLOGGER FLEUR FULCHER: Battletoads - beleaguered batrachians and ambushed anurans

Over, once again to the divine Ms F. Charming as usual, she is taking up cudgels on behalf of the poor downtrodden amphibians of the planet. They are in crisis - but there is good news as well...

Worldwide things are looking dire on the amphibian front, the Chytrid disease has been spreading fast and there is as yet no treatment, one billion frogs also end up as food for humans each year, or used in traditional medicines and rituals.

Yet there are still pieces of good news from the amphibian world, an expedition by Frontiers has discovered 15 new species in Tanzania’s remote mountain forests. Some of these are bizarre looking, brightly coloured and covered in lumps, bumps and growths. But the most unusual characteristic displayed by the newly found Nectophrynoides toads is that they give birth to live offspring rather than laying eggs.

As well as these toads there is a new type of very cute looking burrowing toad belonging to the genus Probreviceps, unfortunately, this little toad is already in danger from habitat loss, the ecologically important forests in which it lives are rapidly being felled.

The success of this expedition shows the need for more exploration into the more remote forests, valleys and mountains to record and protect the animal inhabitants of these places before their homes vanish forever.

If these adorable lumpy bumpy and burrowing toads are not enough to catch your attention to the plight facing our planet’s amphibians then perhaps the ever photogenic tree frog will do the trick, the new one found in Tanzania is from the genus Leptopelis, and I cannot imagine looking into its huge browny gold eyes and telling it I don’t care about frogs and their kin.

It is unfortunate that there are many types of amphibian that are heading towards the same fate as the famous golden toad, but this does not have to happen, if a cure can be found for the disease, important habitats protected and responsible collecting methods for the food and pet trades enforced then who knows how many new species we will find in the future. If those things are not done then it is almost inevitable that many species of amphibian will disappear before science, (and the rest of us) has even had a chance to see them.