The Panamanian golden frogs once lined mountain rivers like this one.  They were day-time frogs, and instead of just croaking at each other to communicate, the golden frogs would wave at each other with their webbed feet, an evolutionary adaptation to compensate for the noise-drowning rumbling of fast-moving El Valle rivers. 

The golden frog started disappearing only in the late 1990's.  It happened so fast, there is no definitive answer as to why it happened.  The most likely answer is that the golden frog fell prey to a mix of chytridiomycosis disease, habitat encroachment and pollution.

The Chytrid fungus, which is responsible for chytridiomycosis, appears to be behind a number of the population declines around the world, specifically in cooler areas, like this high-altitude Panama location.  The animal is infected by zoophores, which quickly catch hold and begin to expand.

The animal begins to have convulsions.  Its skin hardens.  The animal loses its ability to flee.  It sits there, its legs sticking out in the wrong directions, and then it dies.

When chytrid fungus hits a location, half of the species in that area will vanish within a year, and eighty percent of the total amphibian individuals will disappear.

But the relationship between the disease and the amphibian declines is confusing.  It is not known, for example, whether frog populations have always hosted the fungus, and that they have only recently become more susceptible.

It is believed that climate change and other man-made triggers are playing a role in the power of chytrid disease, because although the disease affects cooler temperate regions, and the fungus cannot survive in warmer climates, it is believed that climate change is sending water vapor into the air of temperate climates, increasing the moist habitat the fungus prefers.

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