Under threat: The toad's home is a biodiversity hotspot threatened by deforestation and climate changeThe world's rarest toad has been found by scientists living in an area of just 300 square metres in the wild.
Living in a section of a forest reserve less than half the size of a football pitch in Tanzania, East Africa, the discovery that the population of Wendy's forest toad is still in existence has delighted zoologists who thought the species was dying out.
The toads are thought to be hyper-endemic - found in one very small area and nowhere else in the world.
Hard to get: The Wendy's forest toad lives in an area of just 300 square metres in TanzaniaScientists from a project run by the the Whiteley Wildlife Conservation Trust - based at Paignton Zoo, Devon - and the Tanzania Forest Conservation Group have been carrying out a rapid ecological assessment of key sites along the Uzungwa Scarp forest reserve - a biodiversity hotspot threatened by deforestation and climate change.
Hamidu Seki, the project's team leader, found several critically endangered Wendy's forest toads while walking throughout the area. The species is thought to live in a range no bigger than 300 square metres in the Uzungwa mountains.
Mike Bungard, Paignton Zoo's curator of lower vertebrates and invertebrates, said: 'This is not a newly-discovered population but it is fantastic to find evidence that they are still here.
Scene of the discovery: The toads were found in the Udzungwa Mountains National Park'It is very strange for multiple species - our three target species - to be observed many times over the years in the same spot but never anywhere else.
'Having said that, we still need to find out for sure whether they are hyper-endemic, or whether they are found elsewhere.'
source: dailymail
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