If you thought the EDGE Mammals were
strange, we now invite you to enter a world
where creatures give birth through the skin of
their back, can live without lungs, and may
survive without food for over ten years.

Some EDGE amphibians, such as the Chinese
giant salamander and axolotl are relatively well
known, but others, such as the lungless salamanders
of Central America, the worm-like Sagalla caecilian, and
the mouth brooding Chile Darwin frogs (which carry their
young in their vocal sac), remain poorly understood.

Amphibians are now in crisis – populations worldwide are disappearing:

• Over 32% are listed as globally endangered (by comparison, just 12% of all bird species and 23% of
  all mammal species are threatened)
• Almost half of all known amphibian species are declining
• As many as 165 amphibian species may already be extinct
• A greater proportion of amphibians are at imminent risk of extinction than any other animal class.

The amphibians were the original custodians of the land, being the vanguard of the terrestrial (or ground-dwelling) vertebrate invasion. Next time you look at a frog in your garden, consider that its ancient ancestors explored the land 140 million years before the dinosaurs.