Fungal threats may be 'extinction events' for snakes, amphibians

Fungal threats to honeybees and bats have been in the news lately, but they're not the only species at risk from these human-spread diseases. Snakes and amphibians, too, are facing catastrophic effects from these emerging pathogens. From the Washington Post:

They are fungi, and they arrived in the United States from overseas with an assist from humans — through travel and trade. They prefer cold conditions and kill with precision, so efficiently that they’re creating a crisis in the wild. The death toll on amphibians, bats and snakes from fungi represents “potential extinction events,” said [Dr. Jeremy] Coleman, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife research biologist who coordinates the government’s response to the bat-killing infection known as white-nose syndrome. It’s so large, he said, that it can’t be measured “as far as numbers of dead organisms,” and is “decimating populations as we know them.”

Read more here. Photo: USFWS