Male Toad Mountain Harlequin Frog by Brian Gratwicke, details below

The Toad Mountain Harlequin Frog is such a handsome little fellow with such a splendid name, we couldn’t resist making him our photo of the day.

The Toad Mountain Harlequin Frog is found only in a small region within Panama, making it highly vulnerable to any changes in the immediate environment such as deforestation for agriculture or water pollution.  This region has recently been found to have Chytridiomycosis, a disease which has already played a part in around 75% of frog extinctions in the last 3 decades.

Nearly one-third of the world’s amphibian species are at risk of extinction, largely the result of habitat loss, climate change and pollution.

Toad Mountain Harlequin frog (Atelopus certus)
is on the IUCN Red List for Threatened Species as “endangered“
Population trend: decreasing 

(Photo by Brian Gratwicke used under a Creative Common licence)