Thursday, July 14, 2011

First ever photos of lost Borneo rainbow toad, rediscovered after 87 years

Herpetologists at Conservation International have rediscovered the exotic Sambas stream toad (aka Borneo rainbow toad, aka ansonia latidisca) after 87 years of evasion, and released the first ever photographs of the brightly-coloured amphibian.

The spindly-legged species was last seen in 1924 and European explorers in Borneo only made monochrome illustrations of it. A decade or so later, the CI and the SSC Amphibian Specialist Group added the species to its World's Top 10 Most Wanted Lost Frogs campaign.

Indraneil Das of Universiti Malaysia Sarawak decided to hunt down the lost frog, and his team looked in the nearby area of Western Sarawak. In the summer of 2010 they made evening searches along the 1,329 metre high ridges of the Gunung Penrissen range to look for the toad.

After months of fruitless hunting, Das decided to include higher elevations in the team's search. Then, one night, graduate student Pui Yong Min found the small toad two metres up a tree. Later they found another.

In the end the team had found three individuals of the missing toad species -- an adult female, an adult male and a juvenile, ranging in size from 51 mm to 30 mm. All three toads exhibited those gangly limbs and the brightly coloured patterns on their backs.

Talking about his team's discovery, Das says, "They remind us that nature still holds precious secrets that we are still uncovering, which is why targeted protection and conservation is so important."

Continue reading (Incl. Pic) at: First ever photos of lost Borneo rainbow toad, rediscovered after 87 years
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