Rare 'mountain chicken' frogs airlifted from path of deadly fungus
One of the world's rarest species of amphibians has been airlifted to safety in a last ditch attempt to save it from extinctionConservationists have rescued a number of critically endangered "mountain chicken" frogs from the path of a fatal disease which has hit their Caribbean island home of Montserrat.The decision to remove 50 mountain chicken frogs (leptodactylus fallax) from their natural habitat was taken in the face of the spread of the chytrid fungus, which is devastating amphibian populations worldwide.The Zoological Society London (ZSL) and the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, based in Jersey, have each provided a home for 12 of the frogs which have been removed from Montserrat. Another 26 have gone to Parken zoo in Stockholm.Montserrat is one of only two sites where the once-common mountain chicken is found, but hundreds of the frogs, one of the biggest in the world, have been killed in the last...
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