Harlequin Frog Rescue Mission with Jeff Corwin!

During the first week of April Bill Konstant Director of Conservation and Science joined with Edgardo Griffith Director of Panama's El Valle Amphibian Conservation Center EVACC to search of two very rare harlequin frog species. Bill and Edgardo were accompanied by Animal Planet s Jeff Corwin who is filming a documentary for Discovery Channel entitled Vanishing Frogs that should air sometime this fall. The first site the team visited was Sierra Llorona which has not yet been infected by the deadly chytrid fungus that has decimated amphibian populations throughout the New World tropics. The team was looking for Atelopus limosus a small green-and-black species that was discovered in 1995 and inhabits the banks of briskly flowing rocky mountain streams. Bill and Edgardo were looking for female frogs specifically since the captive colony at EVACC contained only males. Early in the afternoon of April 4th they found the first of four small females and went on to collect an additional four males. Although Edgardo has been conducting amphibian surveys throughout various parts of Panama for the last decade these were the first female Atelopus limosus he had ever laid eyes upon. Hopefully they will become the founders of a sustainable breeding colony. The second half of our expedition with Jeff Corwin and the film crew from Animal Planet was to El Cope in Panama s Omar Torrijos National Park. There we searched for the orange-and-black harlequin frog known as Atelopus varius. Several years ago amphibian populations at El Cope were struck by an epidemic fungus and a number of species were largely or entirely wiped out. However recent reports suggested that Atelopus varius tadpoles had been observed in one or more stream pools and that the species was just barely hanging on. Our search here was principally for adult males that might serve as mates for six gravid egg-bearing females maintained at the El Valle Amphibian Conservation Center although we didn t hold out very much hope for success. Male harlequin frogs spend almost all their time in the stream thus they are the first to succumb to the water-borne amphibian chytrid fungus. Adult females which spend much of their time in the surrounding forest venture down to the stream only during the mating season apparently minimizing contact with the fungus and surviving longer than their mates. We did not find any adult males but we did collect about a dozen froglets which must have just metamorphosed from tadpoles. In addition we found a sub-adult female. Our finds offer some hope for the future of harlequin frogs at El Cope since these individuals somehow managed to survive in an environment that was once swept by an epidemic fungus. Perhaps the disease has run its course Perhaps these individuals have developed a resistance to infection Tests will help us determine the answers to these questions and the results may help us save a species that otherwise faces the serious threat of extinction.