Some like it hot. Apparently, the endangered mountain yellow-legged frog is not among them.
The 3-inch-long amphibians much prefer it cold as melting snow. So conservationists at San Diego Zoo have placed two dozen of the nearly extinct frogs in refrigerators they jokingly refer to as "Valentine’s Day retreats" in hopes the amphibians will emerge with the urge. To mate, that is.
The big chill at the zoo’s Institute for Conservation Research represents one of the nation’s most ambitious wildlife reintroduction experiments.
If it is successful, the frogs could produce upward of 6,000 tadpoles next month — all of them scheduled for a spring homecoming in a remote San Jacinto Mountains stream from which they have been absent for a decade.
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— Louis Sahagun
Photo: The endangered mountain yellow-legged frog prefers it cold. Credit: Ken Bohn / San Diego Zoo