They have a sort of opportunistic component to their life history pattern that's much more flexible than others.

Amphibians are one of the latest groups of organisms to show us changes are afoot on the landscape. They're susceptible to a lot of things that would be good for us to pay attention to. If you're losing them, you start to look at why. Is the landscape changing, and for what reasons? And are those reasons going to affect us, too?

The sensitive species, which a lot of amphibians are thought to be, are in short supply. We have a couple of listed species - the California red-legged frog and the California tiger salamander - and they've largely been chased out of the valley bottoms where humans like to live.

Such dreams provide this temporary illusion of a life that has meaning.

My life is proof that I don't need you to do what I do. If there's no one to see it, I'll watch it.

The continuum in which we live is not the kind of place in which middles can be unambiguously excluded.