We interrupt this Team Earth blog-cast to bring you a shameless (and awesome) cross-promotional message from our parent organization, Conservation International (CI).
Dear friends: Do you like adventure? Think you might you enjoy hearing about some of the world’s most exotic places? Do you believe we ought to protect creatures that offer real, tangible benefits to humans — benefits like pest regulation and possible treatments for diseases like HIV and skin cancer?
Of course you do.
We do, too. That’s why we’re so excited to announce CI’s Search for the Lost Frogs.
The Search
Over the next few months, CI will support expeditions by amphibian experts to 18 countries around the world. These scientists are taking trips to all corners of the globe – from Australia to Venezuela, Rwanda to Costa Rica — to find species of amphibians that haven’t been seen in the wild in years.
Why Amphibians?
Amphibians are the most threatened group of vertebrates on the planet. Up to 30% of all amphibian species are threatened with extinction.
In part, that’s because factors such as their naturally permeable skin make amphibians particularly sensitive to changes in the environment. So understanding how changes affect amphibians now can help scientists understand how those changes might affect other species, including humans, in the future.
Amphibians also offer major benefits to humans. They regulate pests, such as mosquitoes, that carry disease. Because they live both on land and in the water, they help ensure that the proper nutrients get to both types of ecosystems. And because they’re such unique creatures, scientists study amphibians to see whether the creatures can point us to treatments for a variety of deadly diseases like HIV and skin cancer.
And when it comes down to it, frogs and other amphibians are pretty sweet. Did you know that toads use their eyeballs to help them swallow their prey? Or that many salamanders can regrow an entire tail? Just check out these amazing frog facts.
Join the Search
Basically, what we’re trying to say is that there hasn’t been a scientific expedition this cool, this global in scale, since Indiana Jones was fighting off bad guys in the desert.
Do you want to be part of the search?
- Tour our campaign pages to learn more about the search, including the Top 10 Lost Frogs
- Upload your own photos of frogs to our pages on Flickr
- Send an eCard featuring one of the lost species to your friends and family
- Tell your friends on Twitter and Facebook about the search
And, most importantly, sign up today to receive the most up-to-date information as our scientists head to the field and undertake the search:
http://getinvolved.conservation.org/site/PageNavigator/Search_Frogs_Landing
Thanks for all you do, Team Earth! We hope you enjoy the Search for the Lost Frogs.
