Return of the Mindo Harlequin Toad
Escape from the brink of extinction
The final event happened away from prying eyes. The exact circumstances will always remain uncertain, but somewhere around 1989, humans saw the last golden toad in the Costa Rican cloud forest. Hidden in the leaves of the forest, the final survivor died, its body shredded by a skin fungus. A fungus most likely introduced from Africa by humans as they traversed the globe, carrying with them the seeds of the golden toad’s demise.
The golden toad is not alone. An estimated 168 amphibian species have gone out of existence in the past several decades, and at least 2,469 species (43% of the known amphibian species) have populations in decline. When considering ecosystems, change is often not as significant as the rate of change.
Geologic history is replete with examples of species that went extinct. There is a natural background rate of species extinction. When that rate is grossly exceeded, we refer to it as a “mass extinction.” Amphibians don’t preserve particularly well in the fossil record, so their background extinction rate is fuzzy. Nevertheless, studies using what data is available, indicate the current amphibian extinction rate is currently as high as 200 times the background rate.
