LONDON, Nov. 17 (Xinhua) -- The first ever breeding of one of the world's rarest amphibians to be born outside its native Spain was reported Friday by keepers at Chester Zoo in northern England.
The birth of 12 Montseny newts at Chester is part of a project to help ensure the survival of critically endangered animals, whose traditional home are in the Montseny mountain range in the north-eastern Catalonia region of Spain. The mountains, 100 km north of Barcelona, are the only place where wild Montseny newts live.
Chester Zoo was asked to join the Barcelona Provincial Council, the Catalan government's Department of Territory and Sustainability and Barcelona Zoo in caring for the highly threatened species -- becoming the first institution in the world outside of Catalonia to join the recovery plan.
Chester Zoo curator Dr Gerardo Garcia said: "The newts are adapted to cold mountain streams and require pristine habitat but, sadly, they are affected by problems linked to climate change such as rising temperatures and decreasing water resources and human activities like deforestation."
Francesc Carbonell Buira, biologist for the government of Catalonia, added: "With Chester Zoo on board, given its enormous experience in breeding threatened amphibian species, we hope the program will go from strength-to-strength and that we can create a much brighter outlook for these wonderful animals."
The newts are one of the two most threatened amphibians in Europe together with the Karpathos frog, a frog endemic to the Greek island of Karpathos.
