Scientists have witnessed what they believe to be one of the fastest species declines ever recorded, in the Caribbean islands of Dominica and Montserrat.

The species, a native frog known rather bizarrely as the mountain chicken frog, or more technically as Leptodactylus fallax, has seen rapid decline as a result of an outbreak of chytridiomycosis, or chytrid for short, a deadly disease that targets amphibians.

Scientists from the Mountain Chicken Recovery Programme, which is formed of the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, Chester Zoo and the governments of Montserrat and Dominica, observed the frogs over a period of 18 months.

They found that during that time the disease resulted in the death of over 85% of the Dominican frog population, and rendered almost all of the Montserrat population of extinct.

The mountain chicken frog is one of the largest frog species in the world, and resides only on the two Caribbean islands.

It was already considered critically endangered prior to the disease outbreak, but is now on the verge of extinction.

Its unorthodox name comes from the fact that it used to be a popular source of food among islanders, however the frog is no longer permitted to be consumed.

The research, published today in Nature, highlights the need for significant action on chytrid, which has already devastated hundreds of amphibian populations worldwide.

“These findings from Dominica and Montserrat provide perhaps the starkest evidence to date of the terrifying rate at which chytrid is destroying the genetic diversity of amphibian populations worldwide and driving many species towards extinction,” said study lead author Michael Hudson, who works across ZSL, Durrell and the University of Kent.

“Our study demonstrates the urgent ongoing need to build mitigation capacity wherever amphibians are at risk from the global chytrid pandemic.

“While eleventh-hour emergency measures at least succeeded in safeguarding a genetically-diverse captive breeding population of mountain chickens from Monserrat in European Zoos, still we have to ask ourselves how we are unable to prevent these dramatic disease-driven declines, despite global frameworks like the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) aiming to ensure effective mitigation measures are in place.“