Guest post by David Middleton
It’s at least 67% among the Incilius genus of toads.
AMPHIBIANS
Frog not sighted in 30 years and declared extinct reappears in Costa Rica
SAN JOSE – Costa Rican scientists reported Tuesday the reappearance of an endemic frog species that had not been sighted for three decades.
It was declared extinct in 2004 iby the International Union for Conservation of Nature (UICN).
The Heredia robber frog, whose scientific name is Craugastor escoces, was spotted by Costa Rican biologists Gilbert Alvarado and Randall Jimenez in the Juan Castro Blanco National Park in Alajuela province.
[…]
This species had not been observed since 1986. In 2004, the UICN declared this and two other amphibians extinct: the Holdridge’s toad, which is no longer in the extinct list either, and the Golden toad, which researchers believe to be the first victim of global warming.
[…]
With a 67% recovery rate, the Golden toad stands a fairly good chance of also recovering from extinction. Makes me think of this scene from The Princess Bride…
If the Golden toad reappears, will this disprove Gorebal Warming? If so, would the Golden toad become the first amphibian to win a Nobel Prize?
There are 38 genera and at least 467 species of true toads (Bufonidae). The still extinct Golden toad (Incilius periglenes) is was will be a member of the Incilius genus, which includes at least 39 extant species (40 when Goldy recovers). The type species is Incilius periglenes (Evergreen toad). It is not only extant, it isn’t even endangered, threatened or even near threatened. It is rated as “least concern,” as is at least 40% of the genus:
| Incilius | ||
| No. of species | % of genus | |
| 8 | 20% | No Wikipedia entry or Data Deficient (IUCN 3.1) |
| 16 | 40% | Least Concern |
| 1 | 3% | Near Threatened |
| 2 | 5% | Vulnerable |
| 8 | 20% | Endangered |
| 4 | 10% | Critically Endangered |
| 0 | 0% | Extinct in the Wild |
| 1 | 3% | Extinct |
| 40 | 100% |
If a species’ habitat is restricted to zoos, farms, laboratories or backyards, it isn’t extinct.
In NSW, Australia, we have an “endangered” species of tree that is considered to be invasive across the border in Victoria. This is a Federally-listed “endangered” species, which you can buy as tubestock from the local nursery.
If anyone can sensibly explain how a species is invasive in one state and endangered across the border I’d love to know.
I know Princess Bride well. I have a niece who stayed with us often, she loved it, so I’ve seen it (and Babe and Space Jam) about a thousand times. Hello, my name is Inego Montoya, you killed my father, Baaah Raaaam Ewe, and don’t call me doll!
I had a totally different preconception about which “Princess Bride” clip was most apropos to this extinction question. I was sure you were going to refer to the scene where Miracle Max (played by Billy Crystal) is asking whether Wesley/Farm Boy/Dread Pirate Robert is “all dead” or “only mostly dead?”
+1,000
I forgot about Miracle Max… Billy Crystal’s best role!
Better than “mostly dead.”
Of course a rubber frog is always going to bounce back!
Given that there are anywhere near 8 million species on the planet, the law of numbers suggest that there are just going to be extinctions.
Survival of the fittest suggests that there are just going to be extinctions. Viruses alone are probably responsible for at least one extinction per year.
If we can foresee this happening obviously we should try to do what we can to prevent it.
But it is inevitable and the loss of a toad species is really not going to upset the cart for Mother Nature tm. Moma Nature only cares if DNA survives all the calamities that can happen.
This is not assured. A large Comet could take us all out in one day if it hit. We are just as lucky that no Supernovas have occurred nearby or neutron stars crossing our solar system.
100 things can cause extinctions. We are at least one of them but human-like species are probably very rare in the universe. We take precedence over toads.
Besides, toads are good to eat.
If they can’t avoid us, then they deserve to go extinct. We are just one challenge which sadistic, cold, heartless Mother Nature places in their path.
Better than bugs, anyway. Except for crabs, shrimp, crawdads and lobster.
What is the motivation for ‘declaring’ things?
Do they *really* care? Or are they on a mission to prove to everyone, themselves included, how important they are. Are they, in a way of speaking, sensation seekers? In that *they* have to be first with the biggest news. Why. What’s lacking from their lives that they need to do this?
They’ll say any number of things but mostly its because they ‘care’
But why? If the critter is extinct, it is beyond caring and there’s sweet FA anyone else can do about it, So why the fuss? So why try send everyone on some sort of guilt trip for killing it off? I never knew it existed, it never impacted me or vice-versa so, why do I need to have news of its demise thrust into my face?
And anybody beyond a certain age knows for sure that the fastest way to make yourself look like a total tw4t is to jump up and declare something/anything like this.
A nearly perfect case happened to me very recently..
It was/is about a horrid little weed, a species of Ragwort. Sometimes called Yellow Peril because of its tendency to destroy the liver of any critter that has a liver. You don’t want this stuff on your patch if you keep cows or especially horses. It is actually illegal to let it grow, flower, seed and spread in England, possibly UK.
Seemingly it was seriously endangered and only found on one very small patch of dirt in Southern England. (So it should be thinks me, it should be endangered in the same way Anthrax is ‘endangered’)
But I looked and looked and looked at the picture. It was the self same weed that grew ‘like a weed’ on my (now ex) farm in Cumbria. It ‘knew’ to hide in difficult to reach places= dense woodland, swampy ground, steep hillsides and any combination of the above.
It wasn’t in any danger, not in NE Cumbria anyway.
Maybe a Computer Model told them so?
Their purpose is gin up crap like this…
Mass extinctions are measured at the genus level and higher. It’s been 75 years since a genus was declared extinct (and it may have recovered). The Pleistocene- Holocene extinction included many genera and maybe a few families – yet it is not classified as a mass extinction event. However, the alarmist morons cackle about the current extinction rate being a sixth mass extinction.
Note that IUCN only lists extinctions after 1500 AD. So a hockeystick is inevitable. Actually extinction rates probably declined during this interval after the massive extinctions in the Pacific and on New Zealand and Madagascar in the previous millenium.
I suppose you are thinking of Fen Ragwort Senecio paludosus which is very rare in the UK and has never grown in NE Cumbria.
There are many different species of ragwort, all of them are more or less poisonous. Many of them are common in Sweden and they are known to be poisonous to horses in particular, but only considered a problem when occurring in massive quantities since the dangerous dose is quite high. The lethal dose is about 5% of the horse’s body weight.
Perhaps Pluto will recover, too.
Pluto did recover… for 1 day… http://www.physics-astronomy.com/2017/04/pluto-has-been-officially-reclassified.html?m=1#.WT0p6HROmBY
Extinction just means we haven’t seen one for a while where we thought they lived. Black footed ferrets were extinct for about two years until a dog brought home a dead one. No one told the dog ferrets are extinct so he would know not to drag one home. Dogs just catch critters wherever they find them. Humans tend to think things never change and relocation is not possible. If we can’t find ’em, they don’t exist.
Worse yet are the “extinct” in certain locations. As the post said, a live creature is not “extinct” just because it’s living in captivity. Wolves are not endangered just because they are in Yellowstone and not Canada and Alaska where we brought them back from. Politicizing science has always been a bad idea.
Hence my reference to The Princess Bride … 😉