Amphibians, features and articles | Educational Science

Jul 21, 2011

It's Alive! Extinct Toad Lives on in Lab

An extremely rare, toad that's extinct in the wild is thriving in a lab environment, but researchers are still trying to determine whether it's safe to reintroduce the species into the wild. A population of the tiny toads was first found in 1996 living near the bottom of a waterfall...

Dec 11, 2012

Once-Extinct Toads Reintroduced to Wild

A tiny, vanished toad has returned home. About 2,000 Kihansi spray toads have been reintroduced into the Kihansi Gorge in Tanzania after the animal was declared extinct in the wild. This is the first example of an amphibian species that had been declared extinct in the wild being repatriated to...

Dec 14, 2012

Endangered Tadpoles' Mission: Help Restore Toad Species

Thousands of tadpoles are on a journey from Cleveland to Puerto Rico as part of an effort to save their critically endangered species. The traveling tadpoles are Puerto Rican crested toads, and the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo is part of the Species Survival Plan that works to breed the toads and...

Sep 24, 2013

Bizarre Sighting: Cane Toad Eating a Bat?

What's the matter, bat got your tongue? A park ranger in northwest Peru got a surprise when he encountered a toad with something in its mouth. This something happened to be a bat. Ranger Yufani Olaya snapped a photograph of the bat-chomping toad in the Cerros de Amotape National Park,...

Nov 7, 2013

Everyone Agreed: Cane Toads Would Be a Winner for Australia (Op-Ed)

This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to LiveScience's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. When cane toads were released in Australia in 1935, they were the latest innovation in pest control, backed by a level of consensus support that a scientist could only dream...

Jan 21, 2014

Leaf-Patterned Toad Without Ears Discovered in Peru

It was hiding on Peru's forest floors, with a body camouflaged to look like dead leaves. A new species of toad, called Rhinella yunga after the habitat where it was found, was discovered by scientists in a stretch of mountainous forests along the eastern slopes of the Andes known as...

Jan 28, 2014

Elusive ‘Warm Valley’ Toad Discovered in Peruvian Andes

A new species of toad has been discovered in the “warm valleys” of the Peruvian Andes. The new species, called Rhinella Yunga, is distinct from its related species by the absence of a tympanic membrane, a round organ that functions as an eardrum. “Yunga” is used by locals to describe...

May 4, 2005

New Korean Salamander Looks Just Like American Cousin

A slimy lungless salamander closely related to an America variety has been found a long way from home - in the woods of South Korea. From early observations, the salamander looked so familiar that scientists believed it to be an American transplant. It resembled it so much we initially thought...

Sep 18, 2007

Slimy Salamanders Caught Crossbreeding

A hybrid of two salamander varieties—one of which is an endangered species—is outshining both if its slimy parents' purebred offspring in the game of life. Breeding between endangered California tiger salamanders and the invasive barred salamanders, commonly used as fishing bait and introduced decades ago, has created swarms of new...

Nov 1, 2007

How Salamanders Sprout New Limbs

Limb loss for a salamander is nothing to get up in arms about—they just re-grow a new one. But how? One molecule could be behind their remarkable limb-sprouting ability, according to a new study that could also grow the field of human regenerative medicine. The ability to conjure up an...

Jan 3, 2008

New Dwarf Salamander Found in Costa Rica

Two new pinky-sized salamander species and one the size of a fingernail have been discovered crawling around in a remote Costa Rican forest. The new species, found by botanist Alex Munro of the Natural History Museum, London, and colleagues while on expedition, are among 5,300 plants, insects and amphibians recorded...

Jul 20, 2010

Long-lived Salamanders Offer Clues to Aging

Blind salamanders once thought to be baby dragons can live at least as long as most people, scientists now find. Adults of this species live nearly 69 years on average, with a predicted maximum age of more than 100 years, three times longer than related species Surprisingly, the long-lived amphibian...

Jul 26, 2010

Japan Gifts Giant Salamanders to U.S. National Zoo

A gift from Japan to the United States has brought Japanese giant salamanders to the Smithsonian National Zoological Park in Washington, D.C., to be part of a new long-term breeding program in the United States that may play an important role in saving amphibians around the globe. Japanese giant salamanders...

Mar 12, 2012

New Jurassic Salamander Is World's Oldest

A newly discovered 157-million-year-old salamander is the oldest of its kind and would've swum with the aquatic beasts of the Jurassic. The discovery supports the idea that this order diverged from other salamanders earlier than thought, the researchers said. Six specimens of this new species, now called Beiyanerpeton jianpingensis, were...

Oct 1, 2012

Giant Salamanders Strolled Onto Land Using Long Limbs

Modern giant salamanders live only in water, but their earliest, largest known ancestor, which had a burly head and lengthy limbs to boot, may have ventured onto land, researchers say. Giant salamanders can grow up to 6 feet (2 meters) long and live up to 100 years. To learn more...