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Considered extinct, the painted-frog still exists!

painted frogThe painted frog (Atelopus ebenoides marinkellei), famed to have been wiped out in 1995 by a lethal skin fungus, known as chytridiomycosisare, is still living after all. After 11 years of anonymity, Professor Carlos Rocha and a team of researchers from the Pedagogical and Technological University of Boyaca spotted the amphibians in early May in the deserts of Sarna and Toquilla in Boyaca in eastern Colombia.

Frogs by feeding on mosquitoes and insects prevents outbreak of malaria and insect borne diseases. Their disappearance is a sign of environmental degradation caused by human impact.

This discovery gives the hope that other species also might avoid elimination from the epidemic caused by pathogenic fungus. Till date, 42 of the 113 species of Atelopus found in the Tropical Andes (Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela) have been depleted by up to 50 percent.

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