After an extremely dry season in Costa Rica in 1986-1987, the golden toad suddenly vanished. Originally scientists thought the combination of global warming and the deadly chytrid fungus was to blame, but recent studies suggest that El Nino was the trigger and a pathogen killed the Costa Rican toad that resulted in the extinction.
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The new paper, in the March 1 issue of the Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests that the dry conditions (the driest it’s been in a hundred years) caused the toads to congregate in a small number of puddles to reproduce, prompting the disease to spread rapidly.The fungus apparently kills frogs and toad by release poison and attacks their skin and teeth.