Studying toad mystery

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POCATELLO - Throughout Colorado and New Mexico, a rampant fungus has obliterated populations of toads. But somehow the palm-sized Western toad seems to still thrive in parts of Western Wyoming, Idaho and Montana.

Peter Murphy, a visiting assistant professor of biology at Idaho State University, recently spent three weeks capturing the toads and fitting them with transceivers around Wyoming's Grand Teton National Park and Colorado's Bears Ears Mountains to find out why.

Murphy is researching reasons why the Bufo boreas species of Western toads in Wyoming has shown more effective resistance against chytrid fungus than in Colorado. About half of Wyoming's Western toads carry the bacteria that causes the skin condition.

READ TODAY'S JOURNAL FOR MORE ON THIS STORY.

By Yann Ranaivo

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