Disease is the bullet that's killing the frogs. But climate change is pulling the trigger. Global warming is wreaking havoc on amphibians, and soon will cause staggering losses of biodiversity.

The basic message is that global warming is already causing species extinctions and a lot of them.

It's a mass extinction in the making.

But paradoxically, the losses of harlequin frogs were taking place in unusually warm years.

Global warming is wreaking havoc on amphibians and will cause staggering losses of biodiversity if we don't do something fast.

I suspect that climate change is involved in general in these enigmatic declines. Ultimately we have to have a transition to cleaner energy technologies, to cleaner sources of energy. But by then, it might be too late for the mountain yellow-legged frogs.