NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO • October 4, 2023
in 2004, a first-of-its-kind study had just been released assessing the status of the world's least understood vertebrates. Now, a second global assessment of the world's amphibians has been completed. the study found that the status of amphibians globally is "deteriorating rapidly," earning them the unenviable title of being the planet's most threatened class of vertebrates. Forty-one percent of the assessed amphibians are threatened with extinction in the immediate and long-term, a greater percentage than threatened mammals, reptiles and birds.