Facts about Golden Toads
Unfortunately the golden toad is now extinct, which means it does not exist on Earth anymore. It was a small, shiny, bright true toad that was once abundant in a small region of high-altitude cloud-covered tropical forests, about 30 square kilometers in area, above the city of Monteverde, Costa Rica. For this reason, it is sometimes also called the Monteverde golden toad, or the Monte Verde toad. This toad is also known as Alajuela toad and orange toad. They were first described in 1966 by the herpetologist Jay Savage. Since 1989, not a single B. periglenes is reported to have been seen anywhere in the world, and it is classified by the IUCN as an extinct species. Its sudden extinction is cited as part of the decline in amphibian populations, which may be attributable to climate change brought on by global warming, a fungal epidemic specific to amphibians or other factors, combined or acting independently. Adult males measured just barely 5 centimetres (2.0 in) long. Males have been described as being "Day-Glo golden orange", and unlike most toads their skin was shiny and bright. Female toads were slightly larger than the males, and looked very different. Instead of being bright orange, females were colored dark olive to black with scarlet spots encircled by yellow. Jay Savage(who first described them) was so surprised upon first seeing them that he did not believe they could be real; he is quoted as saying: "I must confess that my initial response when I saw them was one of disbelief and suspicion that someone had dipped the examples in enamel paint." In 1987, an American ecologist and herpetologist, Martha Crump, was fortunate enough to see the toad's mating rituals. In her book, In Search of the Golden Frog, she described it as "one of the most incredible sights I've ever seen," and said they looked like "statues, dazzling jewels on the forest floor." On April 15, 1987, Crump recorded in her field diary that she counted 133 toads mating in one "kitchen sink-sized pool" that she was observing. Five days later, she witnessed the pools in the area drying, which she attributed to the effects of El Niño-Southern Oscillation, "leaving behind desiccated eggs already covered in mold." The toads attempted to mate again that May. Of the 43,500 eggs that Crump found, only twenty-nine tadpoles survived the drying of the forest's ground. For a few weeks in April, after the dry season ended and the forest became wetter, males would gather in large numbers near ground puddles and wait for the females. The males would fight with each other for opportunities to mate until the end of their short mating season, after which the toads retreated to their burrows. Eggs were laid in seasonal water catchments in clutches, the average size of which was 228 eggs. After two months of incubation their eggs hatched into tadpoles. Jay Savage first discovered the toads in 1966. From their discovery in 1966 for about 17 years, and from April to July in 1987, over 1500 adult toads were seen. Only ten or eleven toads were seen in 1988 and none have been seen since May 15, 1989.before. |
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