Zoo Atlanta Euthanizes Rare, Sick Frog

Zoo Atlanta said Friday it had to euthanize an ill frog — believed to be one of two of its kind left in the world — whose species was only discovered in 2005.

The decision to euthanize the male Rabb's fringe-limbed tree frog followed serious decline in his health, Zoo Atlanta said.

Zoo officials also wanted to prevent further suffering and preserve its genetic material.

“Amphibians decompose much more rapidly than do many other classes of animals. Had the frog passed away overnight when no staff members were present, we would have lost any opportunity to preserve precious genetic material,” Joseph Mendelson, Zoo Atlanta’s curator of herpetology said in a statement.

“To lose that chance would have made this extinction an even greater tragedy in terms of conservation, education and biology.”

Herpetologists don't believe there are any Rabb's fringe-limbed tree frogs left in the wild following a fungus that has decimated their populations.

The only other of its kind is another male at the Atlanta Botanical Garden.

Medelson and a group of international scientists discovered the Rabb's fringe-limbed tree frog on a field expedition to Panama in 2005.

They named it Rabb after amphibian conservationists George and Mary Rabb.