Amphibians are suffering a "terrifying" rate of extinction say the researchers, making them the most threatened vertebrates in the world. The Mexican salamander or axolotl is being threatened by expanding cities, pollution and invasive fish species which eat their young.

While many of the survival issues facing species highlighted on the map are extremely challenging, sometimes small changes can make a big difference.

(Zoological Society of London Director of Conservation Jonathan) Baillie highlights the example of a small worm like amphibian from Kenya called the Sagalla caecilian.

"It was just losing its habitat because the native trees were taken, so we've started a programme of replanting the native trees and 6,000 have been replanted and the areas where they have their strongholds are now being protected."

"That kind of simple action can ensure that those species can be there hopefully for hundred of years to come."

Ichythyosaurs were dolphin-shaped swimming reptiles that gave birth to live young. They lived in the oceans at the same time dinosaurs were tromping around on land. Previously, researchers thought only one group of ichthyosaurs, called ophthalmosaurids, made it out of the Jurassic into the Cretaceous. The newly named fossil, dubbed Malawania anachronus, is a Cretaceous survivor that does not belong to the ophthalmosaurids, however. That means a "ghost lineage" of ichthyosaurs survived alongside the ophthalmosaurids, changing very little over millions of years.

The fossil in question was first found in the 1950s by British petroleum geologists, who noticed the slab being used as a stepping stone on a mule track in Iraq. The geologists rescued the fossil and took it to the United Kingdom, where it stayed unstudied until the 1970s. Because researchers didn't know where in the rock record the fossil had come from, they struggled to determine its age. (Layers of earth build up over time, meaning, in a general sense, the oldest layers will be on the bottom and the more recent layers more toward the surface.)

The West African Gaboon viper, one of the largest in Africa and a master of camouflage, has dark spots in the geometrical pattern of its skin that are deep, velvety black and reflect very little light.

Interwoven with white- and brown-coloured scales that are very reflective, this creates a high contrast that renders the snake difficult to spot on the richly-patterned rainforest floor.

A team of German scientists set out to find the secret behind the black spots' ultra darkness, and found the scale surface was made up of tightly-packed, leaf-like microstructures covered in turn with nanometre-sized ridges.
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One nanometre is equivalent to a billionth of a metre.

Writing in the Nature journal Scientific Reports, the team theorised that the microstructures and nanostructures, which protrude at slightly different angles, scatter and trap incoming light.

"The structure based velvet black effect could also be potentially transferred to other materials," the scientists wrote.

“It did a really huge number on an entire genus of frogs in Central America,” said Marm Kilpatrick, a disease ecologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC). The fungus probably caused several species of this harlequin frog (Atelopus) to go extinct, he added.

Chytrid is also largely responsible for endangering California’s mountain yellow-legged frog (Rana muscosa).

"It's the single biggest threat to vertebrate diversity in the world," Kilpatrick said.

The fungus, which seems to attack only amphibians, causes a thickening of the infected amphibian’s skin, preventing the animal from breathing properly and interfering with its electrolyte balance. The infection can eventually lead to cardiac arrest, although some frog species are better able to cope with it than others.

A new study delving into how this fungus spreads has now linked chytrid outbreaks in California—one of the more recent areas experiencing huge amphibian die-offs—to the spread of the African clawed frog (Xenopus laevis).

And the study’s implications could extend far beyond California, providing scientists with a potential road map showing how a devastating infection continues to spread around the world.

The gorgeous new species was discovered by scientists during two expeditions in 2010 aimed at studying the fauna of Texiguat Wildlife Refuge, one of the most endemism-rich and diverse highland forests in Mesoamerica. This beautiful, but highly toxic, snake represents the 15th endemic species occurring in the region. Texiguat Wildlife Refuge was created in 1987 to protect populations of wildlife such as the famous but elusive jaguar and Central America tapir, as well as howler and white-faced monkeys, sloths, and a variety of endemic amphibians, reptiles, and plants.

To draw attention to the dedication and sacrifice of many grassroots conservationists in Honduras and Central America, the new species was named in honor of Mario Guifarro of Olancho. Guifarro was a former hunter and gold miner who became an outspoken conservationist when he saw the vast rainforests of eastern Honduras being destroyed and converted to cattle ranches. After years of threats and multiple attempts on his life, Guifarro was ambushed and murdered on 15 September 2007 while on a mission to delimit a biosphere reserve for the indigenous Tawahka.