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PNG's frog IVF clinic could help save world's frog population from deadly super fungus

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A speckled glass frog in the streams of Panama. Supplied as supporting material for a paper published in Science. Downloaded 27-03-18.(Supplied: Douglas Woodhams)

The deadly Chytrid fungus has decimated hundreds of frog species around the world but PNG remains one of the last places on earth the disease has not yet struck, and the Port Moresby Nature Park has implemented a frog saving program to stay ahead of the fungus.

Working with Australian scientists, the nature park's chief executive Michelle McGeorge said they are creating a frog IVF clinic which would freeze the sperm from as many frog species in the country as possible.

"We would like to bed down the genome of as many of the frog species as we can before the fungus... so that we can repopulate and breed frogs in captivity and then release them back into the wild," she said.

The fungus was first noticed in the 1980's after a rare frog species called the Gastric Brooding Frog, which had been discovered just a few years earlier, could no longer be found in it's natural habitat in Queensland.

Named for it's unusual reproductive method, it could convert it's stomach into a womb and give birth through it's mouth, Macquarie University Research Fellow Simon Clulow said it's disappearance prompted a search for other frog species.

"It was noticed one season they went out and couldn't find this frog...the next season they couldn't find this frog so people started to worry," he said.

In the 1990's it was determined that Chytrid Fungus had killed hundreds of frog species around the world.

The microscopic fungus that thrives in cool and wet climates and releases a zoospore that can swim through water and attack the keratin protein found on frog skin and kills the frog by giving it a heart attack.

Scientists say that Chytrid fungus is one of the major factors that 43 per cent of all 6000 currently known frog species are currently declining and 32 per cent are at the risk of extinction.

With the island of New Guinea estimated to be home to six per cent of the world's frog population Ms Mcgeorge said the frog IVF clinic program is needed to make sure their frog populations remain safe.

"We're in the early stages of the program.. so the one stage that we are at is that the staff actually have to be capable of looking after frogs in captivity," she said.

While the idea of freezing animal sperm for reproduction is not new, Dr Mclulow said this program in PNG would be a world first in conservation and if successful could help save frogs around the world.

"If we create this bank in PNG it really would be a first in terms of creating a large target specific bank for a specific conservation purpose that's likely to prevent the loss of at least the genetic diversity of a large number of species," he said.

"If you have some [sperm] that has been carefully frozen in a way that we can use current assisted reproductive technologies to revive it then there is a chance of performing genetic rescue."

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Papua New Guinea