Like several of the state's recognized symbols, the beginnings of the wood frog push came in an elementary school classroom. Sen. John DeFrancisco, R-Syracuse, first introduced the bill last year after 9-year-old Lili Winkelman, a Skaneateles fourth-grader, wrote to him with the idea.

"You probably don't know this, but the wood frog is already the unofficial amphibian of the state," DeFrancisco said on the Senate floor. "A young girl in that class, Lili Winkelman, thought, why is that? She loves frogs. Why should it be unofficial?"

Winkelman followed up the letter with a 4 -1/2-minute YouTube video in January, in which she spoke about the unique qualities of the amphibian as photos of the frog float above her right shoulder — not unlike a television news anchor. Each of her classmates at Skaneateles' State Street Intermediate School followed up with a letter, DeFrancisco said.

Even with unlimited cash, it seems impossible to eradicate certain intruders without also harming native species. Small but pervasive species, like rats, are extremely difficult to target without catching resident wildlife in the crossfire. In 2012, 22 tons of rat bait were dropped by helicopter on Pinzon island, blanketing 7 square miles with little blue poisonous cubes. Several organizations, including the Galapagos National Park and CDF, supported the move because the rats had been devouring the eggs of native giant tortoises and lava lizards. But the “raticide” sparked significant controversy, imperiling neighboring native species like the Galapagos hawks. While pesticides are often the best available option (biological interventions are technically challenging to develop), they cannot suppress invasive species without causing side effects.

The final piece of the puzzle, after thwarting new invasive species and removing existing ones, is actively helping endemic species recover. Some local fauna, like the tortoise and the mangrove finch, have been so decimated that they may be destined for extinction without significant help. On the other hand, Giant Tortoise rehabilitation is one example of seemingly productive human intervention. When tortoise populations had dwindled from thousands to dozens on some islands in the 1960s, they were taken in by humans and bred in captivity. Repatriation projects on Santa Cruz, Isabela, and Espanola have increased total tortoise populations to 26,000, but the current dependence on human assistance sparks questions about whether the intervention itself is unnatural, or unsustainable. Although the repatriated tortoises have begun to mate by themselves in the wild, it is unclear if they can maintain their numbers once captive breeding stops.

The venomous species is thought to be a primitive viper species because it has an elliptically shaped, flattened head; enlarged head plates; smooth dorsal scales; folding front fangs; the absence of heat-sensing pits; and a coiled venom gland duct in adults.

The species can be found in dense bamboo and tree-fern groves interspersed with open, sun-lit zones, and usually inhabits deep leaf litter that accumulates near fallen trees. Its diet consists mostly of rodents that are associated with quick-flowing mountain streams. The genus is known to inhabit cooler mountainous areas at altitudes of up to 1000 m, as well as disturbed areas, including agricultural lands and secondary forests.

It was 16 feet (4.8 meters) long and tipped the scales at 900 lbs. (408 kilograms). With a blunt snout and powerful bite, it ate turtles and battled monster snakes. Now this extinct dyrosaur, a type of crocodilian, which roamed an ancient rainforest a few million years after the dinosaurs died, has a scientific name.

It's called Anthracosuchus balrogus after the fiery Balrog that lurked deep in the Middle-Earth mines of Moria in J.R.R. Tolkien's novel "The Lord of the Rings."

Dozens of nearly complete skeletons of prehistoric marine reptiles have been uncovered near a melting glacier in southern Chile.

Scientists found 46 specimens from four different species of extinct ichthyosaurs. These creatures, whose Greek name means "fish lizards," were a group of large, fast-swimming marine reptiles that lived during the Mesozoic Era, about 245 million to 90 million years ago.

The newly discovered skeletons are from both embryos and adults. The creatures, likely killed during a series of catastrophic mudslides, were preserved in deep-sea sediments that were later exposed by the melting glacier, the researchers said in the study, published May 22 in the journal Geological Society of America Bulletin.

Curtin University’s Dr Bill Bateman and Murdoch University’s A/Professor Trish Fleming say their findings support the hypothesis that while increasing the frequency of attack, brightly-coloured tails divert predatory attention away from the head and body, ultimately increasing a lizard’s chance of survival.

To test the theory, they created 48 models of a scincid lizard, half of which were coloured all brown, and half given blue tails.

Pairs of blue-tailed and all-brown lizards were placed in 24 locations, with pairs 300 metres apart, and individuals 25 metres apart, in semi-open conditions on white sand or leaf litter.

Over a week, the researchers assessed damage and damage location daily, recording attacks at 23 of 24 locations, with 65 incidences in total, 60 of which were attributed to birds.

The researchers found that all-brown models suffered an attack to the tail only twice, while blue-tailed models lost their tails on 11 occasions.

The all-brown models were also more frequently attacked on the head and body, which would likely be fatal for a real lizard.