Goodbye, Bufu Periglenes. We Hardly Knew Ye.

I've mentioned before that Sam has discovered the small cache of children's books I co-authored back in the day. Since "the day" was actually between 1992 and 1995, there's always the chance that some of the information is now out of date. On the last page of Frogs and Toads, there's a mention of the Golden Toad, which at the time was on the endangered species list. Every time Sam and I read this book at bedtime, I make a mental note to look up the Golden Toad and see how it's doing, but a combination of crappy short-term memory and subconscious dread has kept me from doing this. Until just now.

According to Wikipedia:

The Golden Toad (Bufo periglenes) was a small, shiny, bright-orange toad that was once abundant in a small region of high-altitude cloud-covered tropical forests, about 30 square kilometers in area, above the city of Monteverde, Costa Rica. For this reason, it is sometimes also called the Monteverde Golden Toad, or the Monte Verde Toad. Other common English names include Alajuela Toad and Orange Toad. They were described in 1966 by the herpetologist Jay Savage.

Since 1989, not a single Golden Toad has been seen anywhere in the world, and it is classified by the IUCN as an extinct species. Its extinction is cited as part of the decline in amphibian populations, and may be attributable to climate change brought on by global warming.