Romeo, the world’s loneliest frog, finally has a potential mate after 10 years of searching.
The Sehuencas water frog has been housed in the Bolivian museum where he’s waited for a decade for a potential mate to be found. Last year, researchers even created a match.com profile for the lonely amphibian.
After Bolivia’s Alcide d’Orbigny Natural History Museum and Global Wildlife Conservation partnered to raise money to Romeo a lover, zoologist Teresa Camacho led a expedition to discover the elusive frog.
Traipsing around Bolivia’s Cloud Forest, Camacho and her team of scientists traversed creeks and murky streams, plunging their hands into water to feel around for the rare female frog.
“We were tired, wet and disappointed,” Camacho told CNN. “Then I said, ‘Let’s do one more creek.’”
Discovering a orange-bellied water frog under a waterfall gave hope to Camacho and her team who returned to the same site the next day finding a total of 4 more frogs- two male and two female.
One of those females was the perfect age for mating- they named her Juliet.
Before the two frogs can meet (and mate), scientists need to make sure Juliet is free of the chytrid fungus who has been known to kill entire frog communities.
No longer the loneliest frog, if everything goes according to plan, the pair will meet on Valentine’s Day.
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