Haiti - Ecology : Rediscovery of amphibians that have disappeared since 1991

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Haiti - Ecology : Rediscovery of amphibians that have disappeared since 1991
14/01/2011 15:38:32

Since the earthquake of January 2010 in Haiti, biologists from around the world worried about the condition of ecosystems, whose functioning is essential for the whole country. Scientists from the Conservation International (CI), a private American organization for the preservation of species and the Amphibian Specialist Group (ASG), specializes in the protection of amphibians have explored a remote mountainous area in the southwestern of Haiti.

Under the direction of Robin Moore, an expert on amphibians at the ASG, the team was at the research of the frog "Eleutherodactylus glanduliferoides, a species not reported for over 25 years and the other mission was to make a assessment of 48 other amphibian species specific to Haiti.

If these experts of the protection of biodiversity have not found the frog they were looking, however they have rediscovered some amphibians disappeared since 1991. Among them, the "frog Mozart" (2.5 cm), which whistles four notes during the night, and only two at the sunset, the "frog Ventriloquist (Ventriloque) Hispaniola" (2.16 cm) so named because its very peculiar cry seems propelled from a place where it is not, the frog "à glandes de La Hotte" (5.3 cm) which is distinguished by exceptional sapphire blue eyes or the "Macaya spotted" with it's 1.51 cm, it is one of the smallest frogs in the world.

Which augurs good things for Haiti's biodiversity, because, as says Dr. Robin Moore: "Amphibians are what we call a species barometer of the health of our planet". The good health of forests is crucial to Haitian people, and the presence of these frogs is a positive indicator and an encouraging sign, since in Haiti, only 2% of original forest survives "We're at a point where we really must try of protect these forest fragments, to have something to build."

HL/ HaitiLibre