The Amazon gladiator frog is a fighter. But it could become a ghost. Extinction threatens 40 percent of amphibian species worldwide, and they are vanishing at alarming rates.

This March, Robin Moore, a photographer and the communications director for the organization Global Wildlife Conservation , traveled to Panama to search for a single photo that would convey the gravity of the global extinction crisis threatening frogs, toads and other amphibians. After eight days of waiting for the right frog, at the right place and the right time, he captured that picture, which he titled, “The Vanishing.” Its single long exposure was designed to give the frog a ghostly appearance and communicate that amphibians are disappearing forever around the world.

Since 1980, more than 200 amphibian species have disappeared from the planet as a result of habitat loss, killer fungi, viruses, pollution, and the exacerbation of these threats from climate change. But in recent years some amphibian species that were thought to be lost have in a sense, emerged from the dead, leading scientists to study how they escaped extinction.

In 2010, Mr. Moore and his colleagues created a Top 10 Most Wanted poster for lost frogs and launched “The Search for Lost Frogs,” a campaign that took 100 scientists across 19 countries to find these Lazarus frogs. Its success led to a book, “In Search of Lost Frogs,” published in 2014. Since then, the journey has continued and conservationists are working to establish ecotourism and nature reserves to protect the vital habitats where the lost frogs are found.