Amphibians have been one of Earth’s great survivors — evolving about 400 million years ago before the dinosaurs, persisting through ice ages, asteroid impacts, and myriad other ecological and climatic changes.
But today amphibian declines and extinctions have no precedent in any animal class over the last few millennia.
About 32% of some 6000 amphibian species are threatened as compared to12% of bird and 23% of mammal species. Up to 122 amphibian species may be extinct since 1980, and population size is declining in at least 43% of species. In the last decades of the 20th century the amphibian extinction rate exceeded the mean extinction rate of the last 350 million years by at least 200 times.
The amphibian declines are linked to natural forces such as competition, predation, reproduction and disease, as well as human-induced stresses such as habitat destruction, environmental contamination, invasive species
and climate change.
If you are resident of the United States you can watch an very interesting documentary on PBS Nature
Frogs: The Thin Green Line
Thanks to Shannon Cardalines for her great support and voice training 😉
Music
“They took my love away” by Djivan Gasparyan
Filmed in Second Life
Prehistorica – the Dawn Kingdoms, Fort Nowhere
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Fort%20Nowhere/129/70/1102
Wanders Nowhere
Fruit Islands Tropical Rainforest, Appleberry
Equinox Pinion
Skye Glas
Alex Bader
Kala’s Home , Swan Islands
Kala Balut
SL Amphbians in order of appearance
Three striped poison frog / Ameerega Trivitatus
Yunnan lake newt / Cynops wolterstorffi
Golden Toad / Incilius periglenes
Strawberry poison-dart frog / Oophaga pumilio
White-spotted bush frog / Raorchestes chalazodes
Amatola Toad / Vandijkophrynus amatolicus
Black-eared Golden Mantella / Mantella milotympanum
ï¿ For The University of Western Australia’s MachinimUWA VII: Transcending Borders
http://www.uwainsl.blogspot.com.au/2014/07/transcending-borders-launch-of-uwa-art.html