When Doug Woodhams, a research associate at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, tested 49 frogs at a site bordering Darien National Park, a World Heritage site in Panama, in 2007, none tested positive for the disease. However, similar tests carried out last year on 93 frogs resulted in a two per cent infection rate.

‘Finding chytridiomycosis on frogs at a site bordering the Darien happened much sooner than anyone predicted,’ Woodhams said. ‘The unrelenting and extremely fast-paced spread of this fungus is alarming.’ Within five months of the disease arriving at El Cope in western Panama, half of the local frog species and 80 per cent of the individuals had disappeared. Globally, it’s believed that the disease has been at least partially responsible for the disappearance of 94 of the 120 species thought to have gone extinct since 1980.

The Panama Amphibian Rescue and Conservation Project, a consortium of nine US and Panamanian institutions that aims to rescue 20 species of frog in imminent danger of extinction, has already established captive colonies of two species endemic to the Darien region – the Pirre harlequin frog and the Toad Mountain harlequin frog.

August 2011