First birth of tiny rare frogs at London Zoo

First birth of tiny rare frogs at London Zoo

At about 5mm long, the froglets are about the size of the tip of a pencil

London Zoo has announced the birth of 15 critically endangered frogs, saying it is the first time the species has ever been bred in captivity.

The Afia Birago's puddle frog is native to Ghana's Atewa Hills Forest Reserve, where the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) says it survives in just two pools, both of which are under threat from mining.

Twenty adult frogs were taken to London in September 2025 so specialists could study how to care for and breed them, then share that expertise with conservationists in Ghana.

The froglets measure about 5mm long, roughly the size of a pencil tip.

Ben Tapley, curator of reptiles and amphibians at ZSL, which operates the central London zoo, said: "They may be tiny enough to sit on your fingertip, but their arrival represents a huge step forward for an amphibian facing an uncertain future."

ZSL said no other zoo or institution was known to hold the species.

Scientists only described it in 2018. When fully grown, the frogs weigh less than 1.75g.

ZSL said almost nothing was known about the frogs when they arrived, and keepers have since developed breeding methods that are now being shared with the CSIR-Forestry Research Institute of Ghana's breeding centre in Kumasi.

The goal is to establish a population in Ghana that could eventually be returned to the wild.

Ghanaian conservationist Caleb Ofori-Boateng, who helped identify the species, named it after his mother, Afia Birago.

"I named this frog after my mother so that her legacy would live on," he said.

"Thanks to this breeding programme, it will. Her name will be linked to a species we saved, not one we lost."

The births come after the zoo's success last November in breeding the Atewa slippery frog, another critically endangered species from the same forest, which had also never been bred in captivity before.