Nat Geo – Melissa Costales stood in the dark, listening to the sounds of insects chittering in the cloud forests of northern Ecuador.
It was August 2019 and Costales, a conservation biologist at University of New Brunswick, had traveled with colleagues to a private reserve in search of rainfrogs—small, brown amphibians that look like fallen leaves. As the cool of the night set in, the team had already found nearly a dozen rainfrog specimens, a good haul by any standards.Then one of the scientists noticed a bright fleck of green on a low-hanging leaf, and everyone crouched down in awe.
“There it was,” says Costales, “the legendary Atelopus mindoensis!”
Before that night, A. mindoensis—commonly known as the Mindo harlequin toad—hadn’t been seen alive in 30 years. Most believed the species to be extinct, a victim of the fungal disease called chytrid.
Over the past three decades, chytrid has ravaged amphibian populations worldwide. The disease disrupts the animals’ ability to absorb oxygen and water through their skin, and it has hit species within the Atelopus genus harder than most.
But the rediscovery of the Mindo harlequin toad could mean there’s hope yet for this family of amphibians, experts say.
Everyone stop what you’re doing and take a second to think about this. It’s April 27th, and if you go on National Geographic’s website and click on one of the prominent articles on their homepage, you get an article about a toad that starts with the sentence, “It was August 2019…”.
Think about that. It’s April now, but they found the species of toad they thought was extinct in August. And we’re just hearing about it. In April. Think about it.
WHAT THE FUCK HAVE YOU BEEN DOING NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC? Why am I just hearing about this? Those toads look cool and beautiful and I want to know happy things like this while the world is ending. Oh, you found a new species of toad that no one has seen alive in 30 years? Did the toad ask you personally to keep it a secret? What am I missing?
I’m sorry for all the questions but I’m just fed up. First I had to spend like 2 hours on the phone with you assholes because you double charged me for the account I pay for so I can write this nonsense in the first place. And now I have to come on here looking for some cool information about nature and find that you’ve been withholding lost species from us? No shit I’m mad.
Anyway, I guess this is a win for all of us. Yeah we’re not toads and yeah we’re losing a battle with a virus on earth currently, but look at the toads. They’ve been down and out for 30 years and now they’re back. Completely irrelevant to our situation as humans really because this isn’t gonna last 30 years and again we’re not toads, but the basic parallels are clear; disease. That’s it. That’s the parallel.
Oh, and just like being a living organism on earth. We want the cool toads to live. Say it with me.
Lepota and The Hound 