N Is For Nectophrynoides asperginis
Nectophrynoides asperginis
Kihansi spray toad
Where it lived: In the spray of the Kihansi Falls in the Kihansi Gorge of eastern Tanzania
Last seen in: The species is extinct in the wild with breeding populations maintained at the Bronx and Toledo Zoos. Beginning in 2012, the spray toad has been re-introduced to its native habitat, but it is not yet clear if this population will survive.
Declared extinct in the wild by IUCN in: 2009
Threats:
Habitat loss following the construction of a hydropower dam
Disease (chytridiomycosis)
Estimated population in June 2003: 20,989
Estimated population in January 2004: 5
In 1996, scientists identified a new dwarf toad in Tanzania, small enough to sit on a human thumbnail. Less than 10 years later, the Kihansi spray toad was gone. The combination of a new hydropower dam, which altered and reduced the rainfall-misted habitat, and outbreaks of chytridiomycosis, a dramatically fatal infectious disease, wiped out the toad’s population. It was declared “extinct in the wild” after an IUCN assessment in 2009.
But sometimes such devastation can spark ingenuity. To address the habitat alteration, a team of conservationists developed an artificial “misting system” that mimics the once abundant waterfall spray. In 2012, captive-bred populations from zoos in the United States began living in Tanzania again. Today, there is no conclusive survey on the re-introduced population, and disease and land-use change still threaten it. But scientists are now closely monitoring the spray toad, and ongoing captive breeding and other interventions may prevent this species from going extinct entirely.
Read more:
Nectophrynoides asperginis (IUCN)
Artificial ‘misting system’ allows vanished toad to be released back into the wild (Mongabay)