Maryland Zoo in Baltimore's beautiful Golden Frog display

 Please note that not all facilities listed below will have the animals on display as some may be off-exhibit for breeding or isolation purposes.

• Abilene Zoological Gardens, Texas
• Audubon Zoo, Louisiana
• Aquarium & Rainforest at Moody Gardens, Texas
• Aquarium of the Pacific, Texas
• Binder Park Zoo, Michigan
• Biodome de Montreal, Quebec, Canada
• Blank Park Zoo of Des Moines, Iowa
• Bronx Zoo, New York
• Buffalo Zoo, New York
• Busch Gardens Tampa Bay, Florida
• Cape May County Park Zoo, New Jersey
• Chicago Zoological Society - Brookfield Zoo, Illinois
• Clyde Peeling's Reptiland, Pennsylvania
• Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, Ohio
• Como Park Zoo and Conservatory, Minnesota
• Denver Zoo, Colorado
• Detroit Zoological Park, Michigan
• Dickerson Park Zoo, Missouri
• Disney's Animal Kingdom, Florida
• El Paso Zoo, Texas
• Elmwood Park Zoo, Pennsylvania
• Erie Zoological Park, Pennsylvania
• Fort Worth Zoo, Texas
• Franklin Park Zoo/Zoo New England, Massachusetts
• Fresno Chaffee Zoo, California
• Houston Zoo, Texas
• Kansas City Zoo, Kansas
• Maryland Zoo in Baltimore, Maryland
• Memphis Zoo, Tennessee
• Miller Park Zoo, Illinois
• Nashville Zoo at Grassmere, Tennessee
• National Aquarium, Baltimore, Maryland
• North Carolina Zoological Park, North Carolina
• Oakland Zoo, California
• Oklahoma City Zoo, Oklahoma
• Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo, Nebraska
• Peoria Zoo, Illinois
• Philadelphia Zoo, Pennsylvania
• Riverbanks Zoo & Garden, South Carolina
• Rosamond-Gifford Zoo at Burnet Park, New York
• St. Louis Zoo, Missouri
• San Antonio Zoological Gardens & Aquarium, Texas
• San Diego Zoo, California
• San Francisco Zoo, California
• Sedgwick County Zoo, Kansas
• Seneca Park Zoo, New York
• Shedd Aquarium, Illinois
• Smithsonian National Zoological Park, Washington, D.C.
• Staten Island Zoo, New York
• Steinhart Aquarium/California Academy of Sciences Zoo, California
• Tampa's Lowry Park Zoo, Florida
• Toledo Zoological Gardens, Ohio
• Toronto Zoo, Ontario, Canada
• Vancouver Aquarium, British Columbia, Canada
• Virginia Zoological Park, Virginia
• Walter D. Stone Zoo Memorial Zoo, Massachusetts
• Zoo Atlanta, Georgia
• Zoo de Granby, Quebec, Canada
• Zoo Miami, Florida

Baltimore Zoo Holding

Maryland Zoo in Baltimore's off-exhibit holding set-up (ca. 2006)

EVACC Display

If in Panama, please visit our partner facility to see the golden frogs on display at the El Valle Amphibian Conservation Center (EVACC) at the Nipsero Zoo.

Golden Frogs are a brilliantly-colored, unique bufonid from the cloud forests of Panama. Rana dorada, or the "golden frog" is culturally significant to the people of Panama. They are as revered as the bald eagle is in the United States, with a history dating back to the Mayan civilization. Golden or pottery replications, called huacas ("wa-cas") were symbols of good fortune and the frogs are still considered lucky to Panamanians. They are used to promote hotels and restaurants, and are such a part of the culture that they show up on their lottery tickets.

A National Symbol: Although known by all Panamanians, few have ever seen these living frogs and little is understood about its life history. Through its folklore and fame, the frog has become a national symbol of nature unique to Panama. Items from t-shirts to lottery tickets sports the frog.

Golden Frogs are unique members of the family Bufonidae (toads). Endemic to the cloud forests, the Panamanian Golden Frog (PGF), Atelopus zeteki, was originally described by Dunn in 1933 as a subspecies of A. varius. Atelopus zeteki were eventually recognized as a distinct species from the similar-looking golden harlequin frog, Atelopus varius, based on a unique skin toxin (zetekitoxin) and bioacoustical differences. In addition to vocalizing, PGFs communicate by semaphoring, a limb-waving behavior that is hypothesized to have arisen so that the frogs could locate mates near the deafening sounds of waterfalls, where their gentle vocalizations are inaudible. The Panamanian golden frogs, Atelopus zeteki, and the Golden Harlequin Frog, Atelopus varius, are both listed as Critically Endangered (CR) by IUCN in 2004 (www.iucnredlist.org/apps/redlist/details/54563/0). The reality is that Atelopus zeteki has probably been extinct in the wild (EW) since 2008 due to the pathogenic amphibian chytrid fungus.

Amphibian chytridiomycosis (Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis; B.d.) was first observed in montane central Costa Rica, where it may have been the cause for extinction of their golden toad, Bufo periglenes. It has since become evident that this epizootic is advancing southeast through the cooler mid- to high-elevation mountain forests of Central America, decimating entire populations of amphibians, including Atelopus senex, and A. chiriquensis. As of 2007, the disease front was documented as far east as El Valle, Panama, the type locality of the Panamanian Golden Frog, Atelopus zeteki.

Project Golden Frog/Proyecto Rana Dorada (PGF/PRD) began in 1998 as a cooperative consortium between several United States and Panamanian institutions as a response to the predicted impacts of the impending amphibian chytrid fungus, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (B.d.) in central Panama.

The founders, Roberto Ibanez, Ph.D. (of University of Panama/Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute), Erik Lindquist, Ph.D. (of Lee University at the time) Anthony Wisnieski (formerly of the Baltimore Zoo), and Kevin Zippel, Ph.D. (formerly of the Detroit Zoo; currently leading IUCN's Amphibian Ark), wisely focused their attention on one species, Atelopus zeteki, which would be lost to the killer fungus within a few years due to its montane locality and low disease-resistance.

PGF/PRD's primary goal to preserve the culturally-significant golden frog though an ex situ conservation breeding program, field studies, and educational programs has made the attractive frog a flagship species for amphibian decline issues within Panama and become a model for similar efforts worldwide.

Current PGF/PRD personnel include the following:

• Vicky Poole (Fort Worth Zoo) – PGF/PRD & PGF SSP Coordinator
• Kevin Barrett (Maryland Zoo in Baltimore) – SSP Vice Coordinator & Population Manager
• Heidi Ross (EVACC) – Panama PGF Population Manager & In-country specialist
• Claire Lannoye-Hall (Detroit Zoological Society) – Education Advisor
• Ellen Bronson, DVM (Maryland Zoo in Baltimore) – Vet Advisor
• Eduardo Valdez, PhD (Disney) – Nutrition Advisor
• Andy Kouba, PhD (Mississippi State University) – Assisted Reproduction Advisor
• Tom Weaver (Denver Zoo) – Treasurer
• Robert Hill (Zoo Atlanta): Fundraising Coordinator
• Mark Mandica (The Amphibian Foundation): Website Designer & Manager

Our wonderfully committed consultants are:

• Erik Lindquist, Ph.D., Project Consultant
• Roberto Ibanez, Ph.D., Project Consultant

Our generous contributing photographers are:

• Joel Sartore | Photo Ark
• Bill Hughes
• Vicky Poole
• C. Richards-Zawacki
• N. Ellis
• Mark Beshel
• Edgardo Griffith
• Meredith Whitney
• Atelopus zeteki illustration by Mark Mandica

Thanks for the endeavors and support from past coordinators and advisors:

• Erik Lindquist, Ph.D. (Founder)
• Anthony Wisnieski  (Founder)
• Kevin Zippel, Ph.D. (Founder)
• Kevin Wright, DVM
• Rick Haeffner
• Meredith Whitney
• Kevin Murphy
• Bill Hughes

Following more than three years of field work by Project Golden Frog/Proyecto Rana Dorada (PGF/PRD) personnel and volunteers, 20 pairs of adults and approximately 60 juvenile golden frogs were collected in 2000-2003, and imported the United States with all necessary CITES, Panama's Autoridad Nacional del Ambiente (ANAM), US Fish and Wildlife Service permits. As a result of breeding programs at the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore, the Detroit Zoo, and several other PGF/PRD partners, there are now more than 1,600 captive bred Panamanian golden frogs from two distinct localities managed with under a Species Survival Plan® at over 50 AZA institutions in the U.S. and Canada, with numbers growing. Through breeding recommendations, population managers have been able to maintain a genetic diversity of over 90% of the captive golden frog population within AZA facilities.

The second edition of the PGF Husbandry Manual was produced in 2006, and has been used as a model for managing and breeding other Atelopus species worldwide.

Golden frog husbandry continues to be refined, building on earlier successes with this species. Environmental and management solutions are being found to facilitate females to successfully lay their eggs, to reduce post-laying mortality, to rearing large numbers of tadpoles, and to rearing targeted numbers of froglets successfully to adulthood. In addition, for females that have problems laying eggs in a timely fashion, appropriate hormonal protocols have been developed and refined. Maintaining females separate from males, except during breeding, is seen as key to achieving consistent success and a gravidity scale has been developed at the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore to help determine when females should be placed with males. Transfer of a successful golden frog recipe to all institutions holding this species will a priority in the near future.