All Your Amphibian Are Belong To Us

It is official, the chytrid Fungi have reached all three of the extant amphibian orders.

Chytrid fungi are the cause of global decimation in frogs and toads, as well as newts and salamanders. But, until now, the lesser known caecilians had managed to evade their mycelial grasp. That ends now!

Goodbye Mr. Bond Caecilian

A recent study released in the journal EcoHealth has found the first cases of chytridiomycosis in the legless amphibians. Unfortunately, EcoHealth is not a free journal so all I can link you to for the article is the article front page, provided by Springer. You can read the intro but for the full article you gots to have the monies: Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis Infection and Lethal Chytridiomycosis in Caecilian Amphibians (Gymnophiona). But there is also an piece in PsyOrg discussing the Journal article: Fatal fungus found in third major amphibian group, caecilians.

 The team of researchers conducted a field swab of over 200 specimens across 20 different species in five countries of Africa and South America and ran what amounted to the worlds largest caecilian PCR survey for the presence of Batrachohytrium dendrobatidis, which is the fungi generally refered to as the chytrid fungus. Their results? 58 specimens from Tanzania and Cameroon came back positive for it. That is over 25% of the total sample! Infection is a go!

But, wait you say, haven't some frogs shown a certain resistance to infection? Could, perhaps, caecilians face fungal morbidity sans mortality? Nope, the team managed to report the first lethal infections as well. Noting that while the degree of infection in the wild samples were not very high, they were at the same levels observed to cause death in Gaboon caecilians held in captivity.

So clearly, fungi have completed the dominance over the entire Amphibian Class. Who goes next? Bats? Bees?

Well, whichever group it is, I am sure we humans will have our hands full trying to prevent a complete fungal victory.


Awesome Reserachers:Gower, D., Doherty-Bone, T., Loader, S., Wilkinson, M., Kouete, M., Tapley, B., Orton, F., Daniel, O., Wynne, F., Flach, E., Müller, H., Menegon, M., Stephen, I., Browne, R., Fisher, M., Cunningham, A., & Garner, T. (2013). Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis Infection and Lethal Chytridiomycosis in Caecilian Amphibians (Gymnophiona) EcoHealth DOI: 10.1007/s10393-013-0831-9

Photo cred: By Franco Andreone - see authorization (http://calphotos.berkeley.edu) [CC-BY-SA-2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5) or CC-BY-SA-2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons

Gif props: Arrested Development returns to Netflix on May 26. 2013