Nov. 20, 2009 Most countries throughout the world participate in
the $40-million-per-year culinary trade of frog legs in some
way, with 75 percent of frog legs consumed in France, Belgium
and the United States. Scientists at the Smithsonian Institution
and colleagues have found that this trade is a potential carrier
of pathogens deadly to amphibians. The team's findings are
published in the scientific journal Frontiers in Ecology, on
November 19. Amphibians are rapidly declining worldwide. More
than one-third of the nearly 6,000 amphibian species are
threatened with extinction -- disease is one of the main causes.
Among the known amphibian pathogens, the parasitic fungus
Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, also known as amphibian chytrid
(KI-trid), is a top concern. The fungus, which attacks keratin
proteins in the skin of amphibians, including frogs, causes
respiratory and neurological damage and eventually death.
"Amphibian chytrid is an unusual example of a disease that is a
primary cause of extinction in amph