Panamanian amphibians victims of deadly fungus

Workers at the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore have spent the past decade creating a frog-breeding program that now makes the facility the largest U.S. breeder and shipper of the Panamanian golden frog. The program is part of a larger effort by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums to propagate the endangered species in captivity with an eye on one day rebuilding the wild population in its natural habitat.

The "waving" is a language of "hand" motions the frogs evolved to communicate amid the din of falling water in Panama that drowns out their chirps. Maryland Zoo veterinarian said the Panamanian golden frogs once were abundant in Panama. A national icon and a symbol of good luck, their image appears on the country's lottery tickets, in hotels and gift shops. But today they're absent in the wild, reduced by habitat loss, toxins and over-collection, then wiped out by the deadly chytrid fungus that has affected 30% of the world's amphibian species. They also discovered the frogs like running water in their tanks. So the adult tanks have a steady trickle of water falling through the lid. Temperatures are kept near 70 degrees, like Panama's mountain forests.