(Central American) Salamanders "Completely Gone" Due to Global Warming?

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/02/090902-salamander-decline.html

Salamanders "Completely Gone" Due to Global Warming?

Christine Dell'Amore
National Geographic News
February 09, 2009

Silent and secretive creatures, salamanders are just as quietly falling off the map in tropical forests throughout Central America, a new study says.

Two common species surveyed in the 1970s in cloud forests of southern Mexico and Guatemala are extinct, and several others have plummeted in number, researchers say.

The tiny amphibians seem to be on the same downward spiral as their frog cousins, which have been mysteriously declining for years.

Scientists have identified chytrid, http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/04/080401-frog-fungus.html">a fast-killing fungus that may spread in waves, as responsible for wiping out frogs around the world. Others have said that climate change is shifting temperatures and humidity, factors intricately tied to amphibian survival.

But among the Central American salamanders, "we have no evidence that either chytrid or climate change is responsible for the declines," said study author David Wake, an biologist at the University of California, Berkeley.

…

[Uben]

1. Yeah well, try looking at fire ants!

Those damned fire ants have just about eliminated our frogs, toads, ground-nesting birds, and lizards here in Texas.

[DCKit]

2. I've heard that some animals are evolving to avoid the fire ants...

though I've heard such behavior is illegal in TX.