Lonely frog Romeo finally found his Juliet

The Sehuencas water frog (Telmatobius yuracare) lives in South America. Romeo was thought to be the last of his species until a massive search turned up not one, but two females.

Romeo is the only frog to ever have a profile on an online dating site. The page began with the words:

«Not to start off with something very sad, but I am literally the last of my kind.»

Take a look at the photo of this frog. Maybe it was his charming eyes and baggy skin that caught Juliet’s attention, but let’s be honest, Juliet was caught by a group of explorers looking for streams throughout the Bolivian cloud forest. Either way, Romeo and his new girlfriend have a big job ahead of them: save the Cejuencas water frog (Telmatobius yuracare) from extinction.

Romeo lived alone in an aquarium in his home country of Bolivia for 10 years, surviving the death of his entire species. The death was caused by chytridiomycosis, a fungal disease that is devastating amphibian populations worldwide. Over the past decade, all the expeditions sent out in search of more of his kind of expedition left the jungle empty-handed, and over the years, Romeo repeated his mating call less and less. Romeo’s caretakers began to think that they would never find a mate for him.

But recently, not one, but five Sehuencas water frogs were found — two females and three males. They were found in a mountain stream that had been searched by frog detectives in the past. The scientists decided to take all of the tiny population back to the lab, cure them of the chytrid fungus, and try to breed them in captivity.

Recently, a study was also published, according to which the extinct Tasmanian tiger can still roam the planet and breed.

«Now the real work begins,» Teresa Camacho Badani, head of the herpetology department at the Museo de Historia Natural Alcide d’Orbigny, said in a press release. “We know how to successfully care for this species in captivity, but now we will learn about its reproduction, and also return to the field to better understand what threats the frogs face.” Camacho Badani is the leader of the expedition that discovered Juliet and other frogs .