Meet the `rock star´ frog breeder vying to save Southern California´s rarest amphibian
(WorldNews Environment)

It was happy hour at the `Frog Shack,` a tiny building at the Los Angeles Zoo offering all the amenities that Southern California´s rarest - and perhaps fussiest - amphibians might need to survive. Aeration and water filtration systems hummed softly in rows of temperature-controlled tanks, where tadpoles of the southern mountain yellow-legged frog binged on a mix of algae flakes and vitamins. Fist-sized adult frogs, some of them bulging with eggs, lounged on pebble beds after a meal of crickets and wax worms. This is where Ian Recchio, the zoo´s curator of reptiles and amphibians, is performing what some call miracle work in keeping alive a federally endangered species, one of the rarest...