Sparrows on a snow covered tree in Tehran.

Sparrows on a snow covered tree in Tehran.

Olm a blind salamander and Chinese giant salamander

Amphibians at Risk

Olm (left) a blind salamander and Chinese giant salamander (right) that can grow up to 1.8m in length.

They could all merit a place in a gallery of Nature’s strangest creatures. But apart from their strange looks and shapes they have one thing in common--they are all in danger of extinction.
Amphibians as a rule are not cute and cuddly which puts them way down the pecking order of species that need to be saved, Telegraph.co.uk reported.
But they are a key indicator species and if they start to decline it is a clear warning that the environment is in trouble.
The Zoological Society of London (ZSL) has drawn up a list of some of the world’s most extraordinary creatures threatened with extinction.
They found 85 percent of the top 100 of the ’world’s weirdest and most endangered creatures’ are receiving little conservation attention and will disappear if no action is taken.
They include exotically-named species such as the Lungless salamander and the Betic midwife toad.
All amphibian species were assessed according to how Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered they are and as a result ZSL has launched an amphibians conservation and fundraising initiative which it has called EDGE.
The amphibians are those with few close relatives and are highly distinct genetically.
They are also critically endangered and desperately in need of immediate action to save them.
By mathematically combining a measure of each species’ unique evolutionary history with its threat of extinction, the scientists were able to give species an EDGE value and rank them accordingly.
ZSL has identified and is starting work to protect 10 of the most unusual and threatened EDGE amphibian species this year. They include:

-Chinese giant salamander (salamander that can grow up to 1.8m in length and evolved independently from all other amphibians over 100m years before Tyrannosaurus rex)

-Sagalla caecilian (limbless amphibian with sensory tentacles on the sides of its head)

-Purple frog (purple-pigmented frog that was only discovered in 2003 because it spends most of the year buried up to 4m underground)

-Ghost frogs of South Africa (one species is found only in the traditional human burial grounds of Skeleton Gorge in Table Mountain, South Africa)

-Olm (blind salamander with transparent skin that lives underground, hunts for its prey by smell and electrosensitivity and can survive without food for 10 years)
-Lungless salamanders of Mexico (highly endangered salamanders that do not have lungs but instead breathe through their skin and mouth lining)

-Malagasy rainbow frog (highly-decorated frog that inflates itself when under threat and can climb vertical rock surfaces)

-Chile Darwin’s frog (a frog where fathers protect the young in their mouths. This species has not been officially seen since around 1980 and may now be extinct)

-Betic midwife toad (toads that evolved from all others over 150m years ago--the males carry the fertilized eggs wrapped around their hind legs)

Leatherback sea turtles

Turtle Sets Record

Leatherback sea turtles

A turtle has set a new record for the longest recorded migration journey through the ocean.
The tagged female leatherback turtle crossed the Pacific from west to east and then part of the way back again.
It was tracked by satellite for 647 days and covered at least 12,774 miles before the signal was lost, according to Telegraph.co.uk.
The turtle’s epic journey took it from Jamursba-Medi beach in Papua, Indonesia where it was first recorded nesting, to Oregon on the Pacific northwest coast of America.
Of vertebrates that travel through the ocean, the leatherback’s journey was the longest ever recorded.
The leatherback (Dermochelys coriacea) is the most widely distributed marine reptile on the planet and is found in warm open seas across the world including the Pacific, Indian and Atlantic oceans.
But they have also been seen in freezing waters off Argentina, southern Chile, and Tasmania as well as the subarctic northern latitudes off Alaska, Nova Scotia, and the North Sea.
They are massive creatures and can span nine feet from the tip of one front flipper to the tip of the other and can weigh 1,200lbs.
Adults migrate from their temperate feeding and foraging areas to tropical breeding grounds and tagging is gradually unlocking some of the secrets of their migration paths.
Work by the US National Marine Fisheries Service, at the Southwest Fisheries Science Center, with international partners in Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, and the Solomon Islands has revealed that leatherðbacks living in the North Pacific, including waters near the US west coast, are part of the western Pacific breeding population.
Details of the turtle’s odyssey were given in the State of the World’s Sea Turtles (SWOT) magazine at the 28th Annual Symposium on Sea Turtle Biology and Conservation, being held in Loreto, Baja California Sur, Mexico.
Scott Benson, one of the scientists involved in the research, said: “Understanding sea turtles’ and other marine animals’ movements in this way is critical to ensuring their protection.
Ocean-going animals often pass through multiple nations’ territories and international waters as they migrate, making their survival the responsibility of not just one nation but many.“
Roderic B Mast, chief editor of SWOT, said: “SWOT report is all about providing a global perspective of sea turtles to encourage international protection of these ancient, endangered animals.“
He added, “This one leatherback’s migration provides a perfect example of how marine conservation strategies must be as global as the ocean life we are trying to safeguard.“