The Amphibian Crisis

Year of the Frog is over but the crisis continues

Although the 2008/2009 Year of the Frog (YOTF) is over, the crisis facing all amphibians continues. Funds raised during the Year of the Frog will soon be allocated to various frog conservation organisations to help with vital efforts to save amphibians. With so much work yet to be done we intend to leave YOTF information on our site under the heading  'The Amphibian Crisis'.

As giant meat-eating lizards stomped through the jungles frightening the life out of their prey, small species of frog had already been contentedly inhabiting the planet for 100 million years or so. New Zealand was then just floating away from Gondwanaland and the frogs, not needing to evolve, didn't. So they sat there with their unique features; having round (not slit) eyes, hatching straight into an almost fully-formed frog instead of tadpoles, having no external ear drums, and not croaking regularly like most frogs. Scientists believe that these frogs evolved about 200 million years ago, making them as unique as the tuatara.

There are now just four species of native frogs (pepeketua) and three species of introduced frogs in New Zealand. All New Zealand's unique native species (in the genus Leiopelma), as well as two of the introduced species, the Green and Golden Bell Frog and Southern Bell Frog (genus Litoria), are listed as threatened or endangered in the recent IUCN Global Amphibian Assessment.

New Zealand has the most ancient frog species in the world, yet they are now under threat from a killer that science is struggling to comprehend: the chytrid fungus.

"Almost everyone can recognise frogs and toads. they are those extroadinary vertebrate animals which change from egg to adult by undergoing metamorphosis. This remarkable process played a critical part in thesee animals' pioneering invasion of the land. It demonstrates evloution compressed into just a few weeks and it sparks our imagination."

- Sir David Attenborough

Patron, 2008 Year of The Frog