Time to leap into the Year of the Frog!

ATLANTA – While kissing a frog may not fit into your Leap Day celebration plans, you might find yourself visiting some in the near future.

More than 200 zoos, aquariums, and botanical gardens across the country, including the Atlanta Botanical Garden, are showcasing special exhibits in honor of the 2008 leap year, declaring it the Year of the Frog.

Ron Holt / Atlanta Botanical Gar

The Granular Glass Frog.

And even if you're not kissing them, frogs and their cousins do need a little love. According to the Amphibian Ark organization, one third of the 6,000 amphibian species – frogs, toads, newts, salamanders - around the world are in decline or threatened.

Amphibians, say the organization, are an essential part of the global ecosystem and key indicators of overall health of the environment. Threats to these vulnerable creatures include habitat loss, climate change, pollution and disease.

When frog populations die off, it causes a disharmony in that ecosystem that disrupts the delicate balance of plants and animals. Amphibian Ark was formed to help protect the most critically endangered species through breeding programs.

"Avoiding this mass extinction event represents what is thought to be the greatest challenge for conservation in our history," said Ron Gagliardo, chief amphibian conservation specialist at the Atlanta Botanical Garden.  

Dr. Brad Wilson / Atlanta Botani

The Horned Marsupial Frog with young

Gagliardo and Joseph Mendelson, curator of herpetology at Zoo Atlanta, recently rescued nearly 150 frogs from a Central American rain forest before a fast-moving fungus could wipe them out.

Dr. Brad Wilson / Atlanta Botani

The Mysteriosus frog seen in Peru last week.

The two herpetologists (a fancy word for amphibian and reptile experts) spent two days in the rain forest in Panama collecting frogs and placing them in plastic deli containers for transport – in their suitcases! – to the United States.

Once back in Atlanta, Mendelson and Gagliardo went to work setting up a perfect frog world. In two short years, they have created nearly perfect environments where the once severely threatened frogs are happy and breeding. "We can administer certain hormones to frogs and predict within minutes when they will mate," explained Garliardo.

The program has been so successful that the pair is now sharing their offspring with zoos, aquariums and museums around the nation including the Bronx Zoo, the National Aquarium in Baltimore, the Como Zoo in St. Paul, Minneapolis, the Houston Zoo and Zoo Atlanta.

But they won't just be staying in America – the plan is return a considerable number to their home environments as soon as it is safe.