Three new caecilian species found in India

Three new caecilians in the Ichthyophis genus were recently discovered in north-east Indoa. Photo courtesy of The Hindi Newspaper.

In October, a team of researchers led by Associate Professor S.D. Biju from Delhi University, discovered three new caecilian species in Manipur and Nagaland in north-east India. The latest finds increases the number of  caecilian species inthe region to nine.

The new species were reported in Zootaxa 2267: 26-42 (19 Oct. 2009) – See Kamei, Rachunliu G. (India), Wilkinson, Mark (UK), Gower, David J. (UK) & Biju, S. D. (India). Three new species of striped Ichthyophis (Amphibia: Gymnophiona: Ichthyophiidae) from the northeast Indian states of Manipur and Nagaland.

An abtract from the article can be found on the Zootaxa web site.

 

Lungless caecilian found in Guyana

Photographs courtesy Marvalee Wake, University of California, Berkeley, via Proceedings of the Royal Society B

A second, lungless caecilian species has recently been discovered in Guyana. This new species, Caecilita iwokramae, is very different to the other known lungless caecilian species, Typhlonectes eiselti, since it is only 11 cm long and it lives on land. T. eiselti was 72 cm in length and is completely aquatic. It is known only from a single holotype specimen.

Click here for the full report on this new species, on the National Geographic News web site. More information about T. eiselti can be found in the Proceedings of The Royal Society B.

 

Caecilian mums sacrifice skin for their babies

With Mother’s Day about three months away, it’s only fitting that Sir David Attenborough’s “Life in Cold Blood” is showing amazing video of baby caecilians feeding on their mother’s skin. The sacrifice some mothers make!

I’m not sure what the source is for the YouTube video above, but here is the BBC video excerpt from Sir David Attenborough’s “Life in Cold Blood.”

 

Year of the frog video for children

We’re only weeks away from 2008 The Year of the Frog! Here’s a video, created by the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo and the Auburn Career Center, that features “kids telling kids” about the amphibian crisis — what’s happening, and why, and most important, what kids can do about it. Kudos to the folks in Cleveland for making this video.

 

Three big questions about amphibian mass extinction scare

There are, arguably, three great questions about the amphibian crisis. The good news is that all are being researched.

1. How can we slow down, even neutralize, the ravage of species caused by amphibian chytrid fungus? This naturally occurring fungus broke out of Africa 60-or-so years ago on the backs and littled webbed feet of the African Clawed Frog which was being exported as a human pregnancy test. It’s lethal to most species it contacts, resulting in a thinning of frog families to the  point that the few remaining males and females can’t find each other to mate.
2. What is the cause-and-effect of global warming on this mass extinction? If chytrid is the cryptonite to frogs, are warmer temperatures a steroid shot for chytrid? Or, are amphibians just getting worn out by the heat and, in such a weakened state, more susceptible to all sorts of diseases and enemies?
3. What happens to ecosystems when amphibians disappear because of #1 and #2? In other words, what is the role of frogs, toads, salamanders, newts, and caecilians in the food web? When you remove them from an acre of rainforest, or a bubbling brook, what happens to the populations of insects, fish, snakes, lizards, birds. What happens to plant life? Answer this, definitively, and just watch the funds for Amphibian Ark and the Amphibian Conservation Action Plan roll in from foundations and companies that care about general conservation and hunting and fishing. 

(The effects of pollution is probably the fourth big question, I know, but so much has already been figured out about that.)

Let me introduce the research team (the only team?) that is studying The Big Three Questions. The team is led by Karen Lips, an associate professor in the Department of Zoology at Southern Illinois University (SIU Carbondale). She charted the path that chytrid has cut through Central America and presented her insights about the fungus at the recently convened chytrid conference in Tempe, Arizona.  Next summer the team resumes studying climate change impacts, and they’ll even safely remove amphibian species from small ecosystems to chronicle what happens to the food web. Here’s her Web page that toplines some of her research. 

 

108 Days Until …

Jan. 1, 2008, will begin the Year of the Frog. What makes it The Year of the Frog? It’s an extraordinary declaration by the World Association of Zoos & Aquariums, and other conservation organizations, to get attention for the plight of amphibians.  I’m Jeff Davis and I am helping some amazing scientists tell the story of the 2,000+ species of amphibians that could disappear in our lifetime because of a lot of bad things in the environment.  If I told you that the villains in this case are pollution and loss of habitat, you’d respond, “duh.” But the most immediate threat is a fungus that escaped from the southern part of Africa around the time of World War II.  My blog will help to tell the whole story of how we got to this point, and what is being done to avert the mass extinction of frogs, toads, salamanders, newts, and caecelians.  Believe me, there are lots of you out there who know a lot more about this than I do,  so I welcome your input and criticism. My skin’s a lot thicker than a frog’s.  More soon…