![]() ![]() Lips was planning to study the local frogs, some of which, she later discovered, had never been identified. In the early nineteen-nineties, an American graduate student named Karen Lips established a research site about two hundred miles west of El Valle, in the Talamanca Mountains, just over the border in Costa Rica. It is considered a lucky symbol in Panama-its image is often printed on lottery tickets-though it could just as easily serve as an emblem of disaster. The golden frog, which is bright yellow with dark-brown splotches, is endemic to the area around El Valle. There are golden frogs wearing frilly skirts, and golden frogs striking dance poses, and ashtrays featuring golden frogs smoking cigarettes through a holder, after the fashion of F.D.R. There are golden frogs sitting on leaves and-more difficult to understand-golden frogs holding cell phones. ![]() El Valle has one main street, a police station, and an open-air market that offers, in addition to the usual hats and embroidery, what must be the world’s largest selection of golden-frog figurines. The crater is almost four miles across, but when the weather is clear you can see the jagged hills that surround the town, like the walls of a ruined tower. The town of El Valle de Antón, in central Panama, sits in the middle of a volcanic crater formed about a million years ago. Some estimates suggest that, if current trends continue, half the world’s species may disappear by the end of this century. ![]()
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