In search of the golden frog

by Martha L Crump

"The book is a chronicle of Crump's three decades as a field biologist in South and Central America. Following Crump on her research trips through Costa Rica, Ecuador, Brazil, Argentina, and Chile, we learn of amazingly diverse landscapes, equally diverse national traditions and customs, and the natural history of her subject of study, the frog. Crump takes us through rain forests and onto windswept coasts, introducing us along the way to such compelling creatures as female harlequin frogs, who pounce on males and pound their heads against the ground, and male Drawin's frogs, who carry tadpoles in their throat pouches. Crump certainly has a heart for adventure but she also has the mind of a biologist, and during her thirty years of fieldwork she has witnessed the dramatic decline of amphibian populations. In Search of the Golden Frog is thus also an examination of the phenomenon and causes of these growing and alarming population disappearances."--BOOK JACKET.