Courtesy of Arizona State University
Tiger salamanders like this young, healthy specimen show few symptoms of infection until they are dying.
It’s no secret that amphibians have been having a hard time of it lately. They are declining worldwide, but exactly what’s killing them—is it ultraviolet light from an eroded ozone layer? pesticides run amok? a deadly fungus?—is unclear. A new study adds another, unexpected possible culprit: Fishermen toting store-bought salamanders as bait for largemouth bass may be unwittingly transporting a lethal disease from pond to pond.
When scores of tiger salamanders started going belly up in cattle watering holes statewide, ecologist Jim Collins of Arizona State University teamed with doctoral student James Jancovitch to investigate. They identified the cause of death as an iridovirus, similar to a virus that afflicts frogs. The surprise came when the scientists performed a genetic analysis of the iridoviruses from similar die-offs all around ...
