'Frog Saunas' May Be the Key to Saving Amphibians From a Deadly Fungal Infection

A deadly fungal disease known as has been killing salamanders, frogs and toads around the world. For years, conservationists and scientists have fought to as chytrid decimated their populations, leading to the extinctions of . Now, however, researchers say they’ve come up with a novel treatment for the disease: frog saunas.

Frogs with access to warm shelters have an easier time fending off the fungus, scientists reported Wednesday in the journal . And those that overcame the disease with help from a bit of heat were also more resilient against repeat infections in the future. “It’s a superinnovative and impressive paper,” says , a conservation biologist at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute who was not involved with the research, to ’s Erik Stokstad.



“The implications are very hopeful.” Chytrid is short for , a fatal disease that can cause amphibians to become and stop eating. They may also excessively shed their skin, suffer convulsions and become disoriented, as the infection ultimately .

is caused by the fungus , or Bd for short. As it turns out, Bd thrives in cool weather but does not fare well when exposed to higher temperatures. This downfall got scientists thinking: What if people could create warm places for frogs to hang out when the temperature drops? For the new study, researchers focused on the ( ), a species that lives in southeastern Australia and has been severely affected by chytrid.

In one experiment, they placed.