Save the frogs.A "metaphorical Noah's Ark Noah’s Ark preserves Noah’s family and animals from flood. [O.T.: Genesis 6:7–9] See : Refuge " is how Claude Gascon Gascon inhabitant of Gascony, France; people noted for their bragging. [Fr. Hist.: NCE, 1049] See : Boastfulness describes the action plan drafted last month at an Amphibian amphibian, in zoology amphibian, in zoology, cold-blooded vertebrate animal of the class Amphibia. There are three living orders of amphibians: the frogs and toads (order Anura, or Salientia), the salamanders and newts (order Urodela, or Caudata), and the Conservation Summit in Washington, D.C. "If implemented, it would hopefully reverse the trend in amphibian extinctions," says Gascon, an officer of the D.C.-based Conservation International and chairman of the World Conservation Union's Global Amphibian Specialist Group. Over the past quarter century, biologists have documented the extinction of nine frog and salamander salamander, an amphibian of the order Urodela, or Caudata. Salamanders have tails and small, weak limbs; superficially they resemble the unrelated lizards (which are reptiles), but they are easily distinguished by their lack of scales and claws, and by their moist, species, and scientists speculate that another 113 also died out in that time. Those figures are from a report in the Dee. 3, 2004 Science. Data presented at the recent summit indicate that at least one-third of the roughly 6,000 known amphibian species now are at risk of extinction. Habitat loss, pollution, and climate change pose chronic threats to amphibians amphibians members of the animal class Amphibia. Includes frogs, toads, newts, salamanders and cecilians all capable of living on land or in water. . A more acute danger is a fungus fungus Any of about 200,000 species of organisms belonging to the kingdom Fungi, or Mycota, including yeasts, rusts, smuts, molds, mushrooms, and mildews. Though formerly classified as plants, they lack chlorophyll and the organized plant structures of stems, roots, and in the group called ehytrids, summit attendees noted. These skin infections were first reported to kill amphibians only 7 years ago (SN: 7/4/98, p. 7). Today, Gascon says, survival of "about 200 [amphibian] species appears threatened by this fungus." The proposed 5-year, $400 million action plan makes research on the disease a priority. The plan also calls for better mapping of species whose habitats are especially threatened by any risk factor. Such data would enable "rapid-response teams" of biologists to collect amphibians in the path of disease or environmental change. The animals would be kept and bred in captivity until they could be safely released.--J.R. |
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