When Chilean scientists last year discovered 14 Loa water frogs struggling to survive in a nearly dry river bed in the country's northern desert, the clock began ticking.
The tiny, dark-spotted amphibians, Telmatobius dankoi, had long persisted against all odds in a tiny creek in Chile's Atacama desert, the world's driest.
Scientists rushed the ailing frogs by plane to Santiago, where late last year they sought to recreate their habitat in Santiago's Metropolitan Zoo.