A "catastrophic" epidemic has made 30 amphibian species locally extinct in a region of Panama—including 5 species that were lost before they were even formally identified, a new study says.The species are the latest victims of the deadly chytrid fungus, which has caused major amphibian declines in Central and South America as well as in Australia since the late 1980s. The fungus infects an amphibian's skin, sloughing off the skin's layers and causing lethargy, weight loss, and eventual death. Suspecting the imminent arrival of chytrid, researchers had visited the forests of El Copé (see map) between 1998 and 2004 to record genetic information from the region's frog and salamander species. Chytrid swept through El Copé in 2004, wiping out amphibians so quickly that dead frogs littered the forest floor, according to study leader Andrew Crawford, an evolutionary biologist at the University of the Andes in Bogotá, Colombia.
The mysterious fungus acts so rapidly that scientists are rarely able to track its destruction. (Related: "Deadly Frog Fungus Spreads in Virus-Like Waves.") But armed with the genetic database, the El Copé team was able to make the first before-and-after comparisons to pinpoint the exact species lost to the fast-moving fungus—including a handful of species that proved to be new to science. "We're discovering species and losing species at the same time—these two conflicting trends have to clash at some point," Crawford said.
