This Spa Treatment Is Saving Frogs’ Lives

Fighting a destructive fungal disease, endangered green and golden bell frogs, once common in south-eastern Australia, are receiving a “sauna” treatment to clear the infections and develop a resistance to them.

Frog saunas keep animals alive long enough to adapt to the pathogen—a “kind of a stopgap to buy time,” explains Dr. Anthony Waddle, a postdoctoral researcher at Macquarie University. “Hopefully, frogs can save themselves.”

Findings in a newly published study show that within the warmer conditions of greenhouses – frogs would hop into painted masonry bricks in direct sunlight – the endangered amphibians were able to clear infections from the deadly chytrid fungus, also known as Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis fungus, which attacks the animal’s skin, causing heart attacks and death. “The last line of defence is bringing the frogs into captivity where you can cure and protect them.”