According to many scientists, the disappearance of several species of tailless amphibians in Central America indicates the beginning of the sixth wave. In other words, this means that humanity has entered the Anthropocene era, which, according to a number of scientists, will kill a significant part of all mammals, amphibians, corals and other species of living beings. Urgent action is now being taken in the scientific and political circles of Panama to save the Panamanian golden frog. The culprit of the rapid extinction of this rare endemic species is man: it was as a result of anthropogenic activity that a fungus spread in Central America, which turned out to be deadly for amphibians.
Carla Jimenez Comrie
According to a legend that was born in the center of Panama even before the discovery of America by Columbus, the golden frog brings good luck: those who happen to catch or even just see it will be favored by fate. Its bright yellow coloration with coffee-colored spots won it the admiration of the local tribes, who believed that after death the frog turns into a gold nugget.
Golden Frog or Cetek's Atelope ( Atelopus zeteki) was first discovered in El Valle de Anton and in the Altos de Campana National Park. For a long time, she inhabited the Panamanian jungle, living mainly along the banks of rivers and streams. This endemic species, which is found exclusively in the central part of the Isthmus of Panama, is an ecological and cultural symbol of Panama, and on August 14, a holiday dedicated to it is celebrated in the country. The image of a frog is widely used in the decoration of crafts and jewelry, in the design of posters for festivals and lottery tickets, hotels, shops and even local beers are named after it. However, despite the love of the entire nation, this miniature amphibian has completely disappeared from the Panamanian forests.
According to local herpentologist Roberto Ibanes, who is engaged in scientific activities at (STRI) in Panama, the first signs of a population decline were noted as early as 1993-1996. In late 2005, Panamanian biologist Edgardo Griffith sounded the alarm when he discovered several dying frogs during an expedition to El Valle de Anton. The cause of the amphibian's extinction was unknown at the time, but Griffith's alarming finding coincided with a number of studies that also revealed a decline in the number of golden frogs. The last time the Tsetek atelope was seen in the wild was in 2007, during the filming of the BBC documentary series Life with Cold Blood ( Life in Cold Blood), dedicated to reptiles and amphibians.
The cause of this mass extinction is believed to be the spread of a pathogenic fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (bd) from the class of chytridiomycetes, which threatens the extinction of not only Panamanian golden frogs, but also amphibians throughout the world. The disease it causes, chytridiomycosis, “affects the skin of frogs and leads to disruption of its functions,” explains Roberto Ibanez. The main task of the skin is to regulate the water-salt exchange between the body and the environment. In frogs with chytridiomycosis, the processes of electrolyte intake and excretion are disturbed, as a result of which the concentration of sodium and potassium in the blood is reduced, and this, in turn, leads to cardiac arrest.
Invasive view
Most likely a mushroom bd came to Central America from Africa. In any case, this is the opinion of the majority of Panamanian biologists. It is naturally present in the epidermis of the South African smooth clawed frog ( Xenopus laevis), whose females have been widely used as a pregnancy test since the early 1930s. Unaware that Xenopus laevis is a carrier of a deadly disease for other types of disease, people brought it to other continents.
It is assumed that the smooth clawed frog contributed to the spread of Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis in Panama, Roberto Ibanez continues, noting that the fungus is currently found throughout the country and also threatens other amphibian species. In connection with the "detrimental impact on biological diversity", the International Union for Conservation of Nature has included bd in the list of 100 most dangerous invasive alien species. Edgardo Griffith describes it as a highly pathogenic organism that "reduces biodiversity, changes demographic dynamics, negatively affects reproductive processes and completely destroys the populations of some species." The deadly mushroom is found not only in Panama, but also in other countries of Latin America.
Noah's ark for amphibians
There is currently no effective treatment for chytridiomycosis in Panama. However, scientists hope that someday they will be able to return the golden frog to its natural habitat. The first step towards solving this problem was taken in 2011, when the government of Panama launched the action plan for the conservation of the country's amphibians. The plan has three main activities: research, conservation and education. Significant measures are also being taken by the El Valle Amphibian Foundation ( El Valle Amphibian Conservation Center, EVACC), chaired by Edgardo Griffith, but despite all efforts, the frog is still kept exclusively in captivity. In total, about 4,500 frogs live in the foundation's zoo, including about a thousand individuals of the Cetek atelope.
At the other end of the country, in the town of Gamboa, located in the former Panama Canal Zone and bordering tropical rainforests, another project has been underway since 2009 aimed at saving and conserving amphibians ex-situ- that is, outside the natural environment. As part of the project, which is led by Roberto Ibanez, a center was built thirty-two kilometers from the Panamanian capital, where conditions are created for the reproduction of species that are on the verge of extinction, including due to chytridiomycetes. The center is a kind of Noah's Ark, designed to keep in captivity the species that are most threatened in order to restore their populations in the natural environment after a method is found to combat the fungus bd. Currently, the center is home to about 1,200 frogs of nine different species - with the exception of the Tsetek Atelope. However, Roberto Ibanez hopes to receive a few from the El Valle Foundation before the end of 2018.
Will the golden frog ever return to its natural habitat? Scientists who are fighting in every possible way to preserve it are confident of success. It remains to be hoped that the luck, of which she is a symbol, will be on her side.
The Panamanian golden frog, or Atelopus zeteki, belongs to the family of Real toads (lat. Bufonidae). According to Indian beliefs, after death, it turns into pure gold. Even a fleeting touch to her skin causes severe burns and an allergic reaction.
It received its scientific name in honor of the American entomologist of Czech origin James Zetek, who became famous for his research in the field of the influence of chemicals on termites and ways to protect furniture from their invasion. Her image is placed on the tickets of the national Panamanian lottery, therefore, many are perceived as a symbol of the country.
This amphibian is one of the most poisonous creatures on our planet. To protect against predators, the surface of its body contains the neurotoxin tetrodotoxin, which has a neuroparalytic effect. His concentration is enough to send several people to the next world.
Local Indians traditionally oil arrowheads with it before hunting and keep these dangerous but cute creatures as pets.
The species was first described in 1933 by the American zoologist Emmett Ride Dunn.
Spreading
Atelope Tsetek belongs to the number of endemic species of Central America. Currently found only in the central regions of Panama. The last populations of the golden frog survived in the provinces of Western Panama and Cocle. They live in the vicinity of the small town of El Valle de Anton and in the Altos de Campana National Park at altitudes of 330-1300 m above sea level.
The species Atelopus zeteki is at the stage of extinction. In the Houston Zoo (USA), work is underway to breed it in captivity with further settlement in its natural habitat. Amphibians inhabit tropical rainforests and can be both terrestrial and arboreal.
Frogs are often infected with the deadly fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis. They are not able to develop immunity against it, which led to a catastrophic decrease in their numbers. So far, no effective cure for this scourge has been developed.
Communication
Panamanian golden frogs communicate with each other through throat sounds and intricate foot movements. The arsenal of communication signals is quite extensive and can transmit a relatively large amount of information. Gestures are used mainly to establish a hierarchical structure, social relationships, show hostility or friendliness.
Living amphibians perceive the positions of the limbs of inanimate mannequins as a call to action; after an unpleasant combination, they can go into a real rage and attack artificial fellow tribesmen. Sound signals are more often used to attract individuals of the opposite sex and in case of danger.
Food
The larvae feed on microorganisms, while the adults eat insects, spiders, and centipedes. Hunting is carried out during daylight hours. The peak of its activity falls on the morning and evening hours.
The frog searches for prey mainly on the surface of the soil, walking along the fallen leaves.
If necessary, deftly jumps on the branches and extracts trophies there. The predator hunts from an ambush, grabbing the victim with a lightning movement of the tongue.
reproduction
The golden frog reaches sexual maturity at one year of age. The mating season takes place in the summer during the rainy season, when floods form, therefore, hollows of trees filled with water or shallow depressions on hills are used for spawning.
Males croak tirelessly to lure females. Spawning and fertilization occur simultaneously. In one clutch there are up to 100 eggs, of which no more than 70-90% are fertilized.
For several days, the male alone guards the masonry, waiting for the birth of offspring while the incubation lasts.
If by this time the water in the hollow or in the puddle has dried up, then the caring father transfers his children to the nearest other body of water.
The development of tadpoles lasts up to 4 weeks. Lack of food leads to cannibalism among the larvae. The surviving lucky ones go through a complete metamorphosis and turn into young frogs about 10 mm long and weighing 1 g. They have a green color that gradually disappears as they grow older.
Description
The body length of males reaches 35-47 cm, and females 45-63 mm. Weight ranges from 4 to 15 g. The slender body looks very fragile.
Smooth skin is colored yellow or orange with many dark spots of various shapes. The head is slightly narrowed towards a short muzzle.
Large eyes with elliptical pupils are located on the sides of the head far forward. The ears are not visible, the eardrum is covered with skin. Poison glands are located behind the eyes.
The life span of the Panamanian golden frog is about 12 years.
So, today we have Saturday, July 1, 2017 and we traditionally offer you answers to the quiz in the "Question - Answer" format. The questions we meet are both the most simple and quite complex. The quiz is very interesting and quite popular, but we just help you test your knowledge and make sure that you have chosen the correct answer out of the four proposed. And we have another question in the quiz - How do Panamanian golden frogs communicate?
- A. writing
- b. sign language
- C. infrasound
- d. ultrasound
The correct answer is B - sign language
Driven almost to extinction due to habitat loss, the Panamanian golden frog lives exclusively in the rainforests of Panama, mostly near fast-flowing rivers and waterfalls. Because of the great noise in their natural habitat, they have developed an ability that is very rare in the animal kingdom: they use a semaphore.
A rudimentary form of sign language, which is the semaphore, is used by frogs to convey basic messages, such as a desire to mate or a warning of the approach of natural enemies.
The males of these frogs also make whistling sounds, despite the fact that these sounds are practically useless due to the fact that this type of frog does not have eardrums.
According to the Panama Papers, London is probably the capital of global money laundering, and Mossack Fonseca was just "shifting the papers," experts say. Economic sanctions will always be one step behind greedy dictators who know how to find hiding places, observers lament. Western media are outraged by the Kremlin's "standard excuses", Cameron's "blatant duplicity" and call on Hillary Clinton to explain her relationship with Sberbank.
"It follows from the Panama Papers that almost 2,000 British intermediaries contributed to the creation of a network of offshore companies and the secret transfer of billions of pounds around the planet," writes . "Lawyers, accountants, banks and company formation agents based in Britain were involved in the creation of 32,000 of the 200,000 offshore companies that Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca granted legal personality," according to journalists Sean O'Neill, Alexi Mostrus and Tom Wills.
The Times independently analyzed the land register and found that over 16 years, thousands of offshore companies that owned British property listed major City law firms as their UK address, including Clifford Chance, Farrer & Co and Withers.
Robert Palmer of Global Witness said that Mossack Fonseca was just "shifting the papers" and behind it was a network of banks and law firms that organized the transfer and concealment of the money. "London is probably the capital of global money laundering: colossal sums are pumped through London real estate, and this activity is served by an army of "pros in business suits," he added.
"Associates of Vladimir Putin, Robert Mugabe and Bashar al-Assad are depositing and withdrawing funds in offshore accounts, apparently to hide their bosses' wealth from law enforcement," the author claims.
“If you tighten the rules, it will probably become more difficult to circumvent sanctions. But officials say that the first reaction to the Panama scandal will be only to increase the cost of the services of accomplices - lawyers and accountants who find loopholes for dictators,” the article says. Economic sanctions will always be one step behind greedy dictators who know how to find hiding places.
The Panama Papers Still Cause Worrying World Leaders, Including Cameron and Putin,” says the headline . Echoes of high-profile revelations contained in the Panama Papers were heard from several countries on Thursday, according to Neil MacFarquhar and Stephen Castle. , Iceland was appointed a new prime minister, and British Prime Minister David Cameron finally admitted that he profited from an offshore trust owned by his late father.
In Moscow, Putin brushed aside leaked reports that some of his close associates had funneled some $2 billion through offshore accounts and called the accusations an American conspiracy to destabilize Russia. Putin also defended cellist Sergei Roldugin, who, according to the Panama Papers, is the center of a scheme to withhold funds from Russian state banks, the article says.
"Putin also delivered the standard Kremlin excuse that refutes any bad news about Russia coming from abroad," McFarquhar and Castle reported.
Putin noted that WikiLeaks called the Panama Papers a US-funded conspiracy, journalists report. "WikiLeaks showed us that official bodies of the same United States are behind this," the Russian president said. The authors explain: WikiLeaks posted several "contradictory" posts on Twitter on the subject.
"Among the many revelations, almost lost is the fact that Russia's largest bank uses The Podesta Group as its lobbyist in Washington," says journalist John R. Schindler. According to the author, this is a well-known firm, and its head, Tony Podesta, has excellent connections. He founded the firm in 1998 with his brother John, former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton and later an adviser to President Barack Obama.
At the end of March, it was reported that the Podesta Group had registered as a lobbyist for Sberbank. In this regard, the newspaper emphasizes that now Tony Podesta is raising large funds for Mrs. Clinton's presidential campaign, and John Podesta is the chairman of her election headquarters.
"The majority shareholder of Sberbank is the Central Bank of Russia. In other words, Sberbank is functionally an arm of the Kremlin, although it appears to be a private institution," the article says.
“As expected, Sberbank announced that the revelations from the Panama Papers were irrelevant, but the fact that Sberbank is an arm of the Kremlin and does a lot of dubious things in many countries is noted in the annals,” writes Schindler. “As is the fact that the Podesta Group is his lobbying firm in America."
An international investigation into the Panama Papers could shake the art world as well, shedding light on the sale and purchase of collections and masterpieces by artists such as Picasso, Modigliani, Van Gogh and Chagall. Mossack Fonseca's services are being used to cover up the sale and purchase of expensive works of art, writes Lara Crino in an Italian newspaper.
Among the episodes to which the investigation added new details was a legal dispute over the Modigliani painting "Seated Man with a Cane", stolen by the Nazis and, as it turned out, bought by the Nahmad family at an auction in 1996.
Another client of the Panamanian law firm is Yves Bouvier, the owner of warehouses where works of art worth millions of euros are stored to evade taxes. His opponent in the lawsuits, Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev, who accuses Bouvier of adjusting the price of some works, has also been linked to two Panamanian companies.
An unprecedented increase in prices and volumes of transactions, a certain opacity of transactions that guards the names of buyers and sellers, in recent decades has turned the art market into a favorable space for non-transparent financial maneuvers, the author of the article concludes.
The Panamanian golden frog is an amphibian that is endemic to Panama. This frog lives in tropical rain forests and cloud forests located in the mountains of the Cordillera. It spends most of its time near streams or on forest floor. Unfortunately, the number of Panamanian golden frogs in the wild has declined drastically over the past 10 years due to disease, habitat destruction, illegal animal trade and environmental pollution. The Panamanian golden frog is listed as critically endangered, which means that it may become extinct in the wild in the near future.
Interesting Panamanian Golden Frog Facts:
The Panamanian golden frog can reach 1 to 2.5 inches in length and 0.1 to 0.5 ounces in weight. Females are twice as large as males.
Body color depends on the stage of development. Tadpoles are black-grey. Tadpoles - small frogs - have a green body covered with black marks. Adult frogs are bright golden.
The Panamanian golden frog is poisonous. This creature produces a toxin in its skin. The toxin keeps most predators at a safe distance.
Panamanian golden frogs have a slender body and long legs.
The Panamanian golden frog produces short sounds for communication, but detects sound through lung vibration because it does not have external ears.
Panamanian golden frogs swing their forelimbs to communicate. This unusual method of communication is characteristic of animals that live in noisy environments (such as near fast streams) where communication through sounds is not possible.
The Panamanian golden frog is a diurnal animal (active during the day).
The diet of the Panamanian golden frog includes various types of insects and small invertebrates.
The main predators of Panamanian golden frogs are fish, snakes and birds.
The biggest enemy of the Panamanian golden frog is a mold that has already wiped out 80% of the wild population of these frogs.
The mating season for these amphibians runs from November to January. The male announces its readiness to mate by waving its "arms". When the female accepts the invitation, the male climbs onto her back and stays there until he finds a suitable place to lay his eggs (usually a shallow pool filled with small rocks).
Males fertilize a long chain of nearly 900 eggs hidden under rocks that protect the eggs from direct sunlight. Panamanian golden frogs do not show parental care. The eggs are left to fend for themselves until they hatch.
After 9 days, tadpoles appear from the eggs. After 6-7 months they will turn into tadpoles. The amount of toxin in the skin increases as the frog grows and reaches a maximum when the frog reaches adult coloration.