The purpose of celebrating this day is to alert the world to the serious danger of extinction faced by these cold-blooded animals, due to habitat loss, toxic waste, pollutants, and climate change.
Amphibians are an animal species from the vertebrate family that exhibit very particular physical characteristics. Their skin is smooth, lacking scales, and they also have a tail that they use for swimming. They live in water and breathe through gills.
Once they develop, they have lungs, four legs with interdigital membranes, and are capable of living both in water and on land. They breathe through their skin, are oviparous, and feed by hunting small insects. They are the only vertebrate species that undergoes metamorphosis.
It is believed that amphibians evolved from fish approximately 360 million years ago and that reptiles emerged from them, later giving rise to other evolutionary species such as the birds and mammals we know today.
Amphibians play an important role in maintaining the proper balance of ecosystems throughout the world. One of their main functions is to allow nutrients to flow harmoniously from aquatic to terrestrial sites, which in turn contributes to preventing erosion.
Pollution and climate change have been some of the main factors in the extinction of amphibians in most ecosystems across the planet.
April 27: International Day for the Conservation of Amphibians
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