Conservationists have failed to find a match for Romeo, a rare Sehuencas water frog, since he was collected by scientists in Bolivia over 10 years ago.
ADVERTISEMENTA sympathetic charity and dating website has created a dating profile for Romeo, to help him find his Juliet after 10 years of being single.
Romeo is a frog.
In fact, he is a Sehuencas water frog: a species so rare that scientists have failed to find another female of its kind in a decade.
So Global Wildlife Conservation (GWC) has teamed up with dating site Match to create an online profile and raise money to help Romeo find his (soul)mate.
“When biologists collected Romeo 10 years ago … we had no idea we wouldn’t be able to find a single other individual in all this time,” said Arturo Muñoz, founder of the Bolivian Amphibian Initiative and GWC associate conservation scientist.
“Romeo started to call for a mate about a year after he was brought into captivity, but those calls have slowed in the last few years,” he added.
“We don’t want him to lose hope, and we continue to remain hopeful that others are out there so we can establish a conservation breeding program to save this species.”
Romeo currently lives in an aquarium in the Museo de Historia Natural Alcide d’Orbigny in Cochabamba City, Bolivia.
The aquatic animal’s population has declined rapidly due to a combination of climate change, habitat loss, pollution, disease and the introduction of tadpole-feeding trout in Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru.
So GWC hopes to raise $15,000 (€12,145) on Valentine’s Day to help fund 10 expeditions to the frogs’ existing or similar habitats so a girlfriend for Romeo can be found.
“Finding a match for Romeo is a new challenge for us, but in the interest of saving an entire species, we gladly and confidently accept,” said Match CEO Hesam Hosseini.