Amphibians face extinction as a deadly fungus sweeps through the rainforests of South America, threatening to destroy one third of the frog population.

This natural biohazard is called the chytrid fungus, a deadly parasite in the Phylum Chytridiomycota family that thrives in moist environments.

A new species of chytrid fungus called Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, or “bd” for short, infects the skin of frogs, causing a hardening in the skin tissue.

Unlike most animals, frogs absorb nutrients and even breathe through their skin. When the fungus hardens, creating a husk over their skin, frogs will experience malnutrition or suffocation. Frogs will lie down and simply allow their hearts to stop beating.

Approximately 6000 species of amphibians are susceptible to this fungus, which is responsible for the depopulation and extinction of almost a third of the South America’s frog population. The disease that is running rampant in South America is not only affecting local frogs but is also spreading and killing world wide, and appears to be getting worse.

One major cause of the spread of this deadly frog fungus is frog farms. American Bull Frogs are raised in pools teeming with Fungus spores, and then they are shipped off around the world to markets where they come in contact with, and infect, more frogs.

Rather than containing the viral fungus, human beings have ignored the mass extinction and helped the spread of this deadly disease.

Thirty-six percent of the world’s frog population is threatened, or near-threatened. Out of 6285 species, 165 are already extinct in the wild, and 500 more are beyond the point of salvation and will soon be extinct.

All but two species of frog are susceptible to death by the spread of this deadly spore. This is the greatest mass killing of vertebrae ever recorded, and so far there is no way to stop it, and little action to contain it.