Taipei Zoo is introducing golden mantella frogs, yellow-banded poison dart frogs and rough knob-tailed geckos as part of its conservation efforts of endangered amphibious reptiles, the zoo said on Wednesday.
The species are part of a genetic diversification program with Singapore Zoo and arrived in Taiwan on March 16, it said.
The two zoos have close ties and regularly collaborate on conservation efforts, including by exchanging animals to ensure genetic diversity, it said.
Photo courtesy of Taipei Zoo via CNA
In exchange for the three reptile species, Taipei Zoo said it would send four species of poison dart frogs to Singapore, as their population in Taipei is stable.
Taipei Zoo said it is the first time that it introduced rough knob-tailed geckos, which are endemic to Australia.
It hopes to achieve a stable population of the gecko, whose most distinct features are warty and spiked skin, and a knobbed tail, it said.
Amphibious reptiles are prone to carrying unique kinds of pests — such as amphibian chytrid fungi, which are highly lethal to the reptiles — so the newly arrived animals would be quarantined for three months, after which they would be displayed to zoo visitors, it said.
South Korean K-pop girl group Blackpink are to make Kaohsiung the first stop on their Asia tour when they perform at Kaohsiung National Stadium on Oct. 18 and 19, the event organizer said yesterday. The upcoming performances will also make Blackpink the first girl group ever to perform twice at the stadium. It will be the group’s third visit to Taiwan to stage a concert. The last time Blackpink held a concert in the city was in March 2023. Their first concert in Taiwan was on March 3, 2019, at NTSU Arena (Linkou Arena). The group’s 2022-2023 “Born Pink” tour set a
CPBL players, cheerleaders and officials pose at a news conference in Taipei yesterday announcing the upcoming All-Star Game. This year’s CPBL All-Star Weekend is to be held at the Taipei Dome on July 19 and 20.
The Taiwan High Court yesterday upheld a lower court’s decision that ruled in favor of former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) regarding the legitimacy of her doctoral degree. The issue surrounding Tsai’s academic credentials was raised by former political talk show host Dennis Peng (彭文正) in a Facebook post in June 2019, when Tsai was seeking re-election. Peng has repeatedly accused Tsai of never completing her doctoral dissertation to get a doctoral degree in law from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in 1984. He subsequently filed a declaratory action charging that
The Hualien Branch of the High Court today sentenced the main suspect in the 2021 fatal derailment of the Taroko Express to 12 years and six months in jail in the second trial of the suspect for his role in Taiwan’s deadliest train crash. Lee Yi-hsiang (李義祥), the driver of a crane truck that fell onto the tracks and which the the Taiwan Railways Administration's (TRA) train crashed into in an accident that killed 49 people and injured 200, was sentenced to seven years and 10 months in the first trial by the Hualien District Court in 2022. Hoa Van Hao, a