extinction – GOLLYGEE!

(Image: Mike Tyler/ANT Photo Library/Science Source)

Researchers are working to bring a frog that gives birth through its mouth back from extinction. The New Scientist reports:

Habitat destruction drove the gastric-brooding frog (Rheobatrachus silus) to extinction in 1983, but researchers have now created an early frog embryo from frozen specimens with the goal of bringing it back to life.

The gastric brooding frog was the only animal known to give birth through its mouth. It swallows its eggs after laying them, lets them grow for about six weeks, and then dribbles out tadpoles.

To clone the frog, Michael Archer and colleagues at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, isolated the nuclei from the cells of frogs that had been frozen for 40 years. They transferred them into the eggs of a modern frog, Mixophyes fasciolatus, which then divided several times as if to form an early embryo. The research, which has not yet been published, was presented at a TED^x conference on “de-extinction” in Washington DC last week.

One in five of the world’s invertebrate species are threatened with extinction, according to the latest report from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL).

…the greatest threat is to freshwater invertebrates, including crabs and snails, followed by terrestrial and marine invertebrates. More mobile animals, such as butterflies and dragonflies, tended to have the least risk of extinction.

The report estimates that 34% of freshwater invertebrates could be under threat, including more than half of the world’s freshwater snails and slugs. In the southeastern United States, which is a freshwater diversity hotspot, almost 40% of molluscs and crayfish could be wiped out owing to the effects of dams and pollution. In the oceans, almost one-third of reef-building corals are endangered largely because of climate change, which causes coral bleaching and ocean acidification.

Overall, habitat loss, pollution and invasive species represented the biggest threats to invertebrate diversity around the world. The proportion of species at risk (one-fifth) is similar to findings in vertebrates and plants. The report will be formally presented on 7 September at the World Conservation Congress in Jeju, South Korea, where conservationists, scientists and government leaders will meet to discuss conservation and development issues.

More from Brendan Borrell at Scientific American.

GOLLYGEE!

Tag: extinction

coming back from extinction

invertebrates face threat of extinction