"It's heartbreaking that a species that outlived the dinosaurs now faces extinction at human hands," said Melissa Cancino, founder of Proyecto Anfibia
A species in Chile that once hopped alongside dinosaurs now faces a dire threat -- not from prehistoric predators, but from humans. The Helmeted Water Toad (Calyptocephalella gayi), a "living fossil" found in Chile, is rapidly losing its habitat due to climate change and human encroachment, reported Reuters recently.
The giant amphibian, one of the largest in the world at over 30 centimeters or a foot long and weighing up to one kg or 2.2 pounds, has survived millions of years with little genetic change. Now, its population has declined by 30% since 1990, landing it on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) "vulnerable" list.
"It's heartbreaking that a species that outlived the dinosaurs now faces extinction at human hands," said Melissa Cancino, founder of Proyecto Anfibia, a Chilean amphibian research group.
READ: Extinct fish brought back to life 100 Years after (September 29, 2022)
Amphibians as a whole are the most endangered group of animals on Earth, with one-third of their 6,300 species at risk of extinction. Habitat loss, pollution, invasive species, and diseases have pushed frogs, toads, and salamanders to the brink, while climate change and wildfires exacerbate their plight.
Scientists warn that amphibians, often seen as ecological "canaries in the coal mine," are signaling a looming biodiversity crisis across the planet. But the threat is not limited to amphibians. Across taxa, species are disappearing at alarming rates.
The IUCN estimates that 46,300 species -- or 28% of those assessed -- face extinction. Island species, particularly reptiles, are among the hardest hit, with habitat fragmentation turning mainland areas into "virtual islands," isolating populations and preventing genetic diversity.
In California, the Ridgway's Rail, an endangered bird species, illustrates the consequences of habitat destruction. More than a century of salt marsh loss from agriculture and urbanization has left the bird vulnerable to genetic bottlenecks, according to a U.S. Geological Survey study. Meanwhile, wildfires are further devastating amphibians like the Mountain Yellow-Legged Frog in Southern California, which already struggles with habitat loss and a deadly fungal infection.
Scientists estimate that one million species could vanish in the coming decades, with current extinction rates far exceeding historical averages. The United Nations (UN) warns this mass extinction event rivals the one that wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago.
Human activities -- deforestation, overexploitation, and pollution, besides climate change -- are driving the crisis to reach a new peak. Yet, humans are also uniquely positioned to halt it. "We are not only the cause but also the solution," advocates of conservation argue.
Extinction doesn't merely erase species but erodes the very ecosystems humans are in and the shared heritage. Each loss shrinks the world's biodiversity, leaving the future humans poorer and lonelier on Earth.
While conservationists call for urgent action, another group of scientists embark upon new evolution with reviving the extinct species that was limited to fiction or Hollywood movies so far.
Colossal Biosciences, a biotech and genetic engineering startup has undertaken a major plan to "de-extinct" the woolly mammoth, the Tasmanian tiger, the northern white rhinoceros, and the dodo.
READ: De-extinction? Plans to revive Tasmanian tiger triggers debate (August 20, 2022)
Currently, the firm is busy reviving woolly mammoth hybrid calves by 2028, and reintroducing them to the Arctic tundra habitat. Another project envisages the revival of Tasmanian tiger (thylacine), a carnivorous dog-like marsupial with stripes was the recent species on record by the European settlement in Australia. The marsupial carried its babies in a pouch just as kangaroos or koalas do but the hunting spree of British settlers led to their extinction by the 1930s.
Almost a century later, using the genome sequenced from DNA recovered from a 108-year-old specimen kept at Australia's Victoria Museum, the biotech startup is keen to use IVF and gestation without a surrogate, deploying the CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) gene editing and computational biology capabilities to reproduce thylacine DNA.
Many experts have raised concerns over the concept of reviving extinct species as their original environment was vastly different from now. But revival scientists at Colossal insist on return of these extinct species to enforce rebalancing Australia's ecosystem, which has a record extinct species.
"Without an apex predator, ecosystems plunge into a series of cascading trophic downgrading effects, leading to the spread of disease, an increase in wildfires and invasive species, a reduction in carbon sequestration, and a disruption to natural biogeochemical cycles," says the biotech firm.
That leaves the debate afresh whether conservation efforts at an estimated $100 billion investment in endangered species or encourage startups like Colossal who are successfully raising new funds to sustain their revival plans of some dangerous extinct species.