Amphibians are disappearing from natural habitats around theworld, but UC Davis researchers discovered a surprisingly diverse frog community in the urban setting of a storm-drainage settling pond in Davis, Calif. In a story that's part urban ecology detective work and part local action on global problems, the frogs leaped to public attention when the pond was scheduled to be bulldozed during construction of a freeway overpass. A member of the International Task Force on Declining Amphibians, UC Davis biology professor Brad Shaffer advised the city on pond rehabilitation and arranged to shelter temporarily the orphaned amphibians. Amphibian round-up duties during the spring breeding season were spearheaded by undergraduate student John Crayon, who collected about two dozen of the increasingly rare Western toad as well as the more common Pacific tree frog. After a few return trips to collect remaining tadpoles, Shaffer and Crayon discovered a third amphibian species never reported before in the area -- the Western spadefoot toad, named after its distinctive shovel-like hind foot -- and a species of special concern in the state. "For California, three species in a pond is a high diversity of frogs," says Shaffer, an evolutionary biologist at the UC Davis Center for Population Biology. "It shows that species can show up in odd and unexpected places." The frogs will reside in Shaffer's lab until they can be repatriated to their restored home pond and possibly an alternative habitat.