Titicaca water frog

Listed Critically Endangered in 2004, it was moved down to Endangered in 2020. The frogs had not recovered. They turned out to live longer than thought, which stretches the three-generation window the Red List measures a decline over.

Endangered is the current global status, from the 2020 Red List assessment. Its decline is estimated at 50 to 80% between 1994 and 2036, and on the Bolivian side of the lake the population is thought to be down by about 90%. Some sources still say Critically Endangered, which was the 2004 listing.

When the water runs low on oxygen it does push-ups. The frog plants itself on the bottom and bobs about once every six seconds, stirring fresh water across its skin folds instead of swimming up for air.

Pollution kills them in the thousands. Mass die-offs have been recorded in 2009, 2011, 2013, 2015 and 2016, when about 10,000 dead frogs turned up in the Coata River on the Peruvian side. Frogs are also caught and sold for food and for a blended 'frog juice', and international trade has been banned under CITES Appendix I since 2016.

This photo was taken 3 m down off Isla de la Luna in Bolivia, during a 2018 study which found that these frogs climb onto rocks and bask in the midday sun without ever leaving the water.