Artificial misting system allows vanished toad to be released back into the wild

In 1996 scientists discovered a new species of dwarf toad: the Kihansi spray toad (Nectophrynoides asperginis). Although surviving on only two hectares near the Kihansi Gorge in Tanzania, the toads proved populous: around 17,000 individuals crowded the smallest known habitat of any vertebrate, living happily off the moist micro-habitat created by spray from adjacent waterfalls. Eight years later and the Kihansi spray toad was gone. Disease combined with the construction of a hydroelectric dam ended the toads’ limited, but fecund, reign. However, before the toad population collapsed completely conservationists with the Wildlife Conservation Society’s (WCS) Bronx Zoo were able to establish a captive population of 499 frogs. Now, researchers are releasing a seed population of Kihansi spray toads back into their native habitat, but with one caveat: an artificial “misting system” is the only thing standing between the tiny amphibians and a second extinction — via redwolf.newsvine.com