The holiday buying season is upon us, and as always, people are looking for creative gift ideas. One that pops up every year is naming a distant star after a gift recipient. This dubious enterprise results in a handsome certificate and a promise to enter the person’s name in some mysterious book. Sorry to say, astronomers around the world do not start calling some far-flung sun Aunt Gussie.
We recently brought you the rediscovery story of cave squeakers. These tiny frogs, known for their high-pitched whistling calls, were native to the mountainous region of eastern Zimbabwe but had not been seen since 1962. That all changed in late 2016, when researchers found four cave squeakers, confirming that after 58 years the species was not extinct. Cave squeakers remain critically endangered according to the IUCN’s Red List of Endangered Species.
