Desert Rain Frog Listed as Vulnerable by IUCN
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- IUCN classified the desert rain frog (Breviceps macrops) as vulnerable on its red list, warning its population is expected to decline by 20% over the next decade without conservation.
- The frog lives exclusively in a narrow strip of South Africa's north-west coast and south-western Namibia, where diamond mining and the Boegoebaai port and rail project are projected to affect a third of its South African range and two-thirds of its Namibian range over 20 years.
- Dr Jeanne Tarrant of Anura Africa said viral social media clips of the frog's high-pitched squeak — actually a distress call — have triggered a surge in online searches about obtaining one as a pet.
- The frog burrows backwards up to 30cm into sand dunes using shovel-like back feet to reach a damp layer, where it can remain for months breathing through skin, according to Professor Louis du Preez of North-West University.
- It absorbs moisture from condensed fog through a highly vascularized pink patch on its belly — what Du Preez calls 'blotting paper' skin — and its rotund shape reduces evaporation compared to a thinner body.
- During mating, the male secretes glue on his chest and forearms to attach himself to the female because her rotund body offers nothing to grip; she later lays unfertilized eggs atop fertilized ones that liquefy into oxygen-trapping foam for hatching tadpoles.
Why it matters: The desert rain frog exists nowhere else on Earth, and two major infrastructure projects are set to erase up to two-thirds of its Namibian habitat within two decades. If the pet trade that viral videos are fueling translates into wild collection, an already range-locked species loses its last buffer.
