Brian Gratwicke

A powdered glass frog, Cochranella pulverata, from Panama is shown here. A new social-networking website allows citizen scientists to upload their photos of frogs to help conservationists track frogs around the world.

Budding naturalists armed with a camera and an Internet connection can help save the world's frogs from extinction thanks to a new social-networking site that links up information on their froggy finds with scientists who are racing to conserve the amphibians.

Of the 6,814 known species of amphibians, about 2,000 are considered threatened with extinction due to habitat loss, climate change, the chyrtrid fungus, and other factors. In the last two decades, 168 are thought to have gone extinct. 

To participate in the Global Amphibian Blitz, citizen scientists take a photo of a frog they encounter in their backyard, at the park, on a hike, or anywhere else one leaps into view. They can upload it to the iNaturalist.org website along with the date and GPS location (there's an iPhone app for that).

Once posted, the species is identified by scientists who are keen to learn the whereabouts and population status of amphibians.

"By being in the right place at the right time and armed with a camera, amateurs can provide information that scientists could never dream of collecting on their own," Scott Loarie, co-director of iNaturalist and post-doctoral fellow at Stanford University, said in a news release.

Since the Global Amphibian Blitz was launched May 25, reports on more than 290 of the known species of amphibians have been posted to the website.

Project scientists view the social-networking site as a wise use of limited conservation funds to locate rare species and collect data on out-of-range occurrences. The precise whereabouts of the rare frogs will be closely guarded by the scientists to thwart collection by wildlife traders.

This is the latest campaign to collect data on the world's amphibians. The Search for Lost Frogs, a global effort to account for amphibians feared threatened with extinction, wrapped up in 2010 with mixed results — several frogs thought already lost were re-discovered, but many more appear gone forever.

To learn more abouth the Global Amphibian Blitz, check out the video below.

In addition to iNaturalist, the Global Amphibian Blitz is sponsored by the University of California at Berkeley's AmphibiaWeb; Amphibian Ark; the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute; the Amphibian Specialist Group of the Species Survival Commission; and the Center for Biological Diversity.

More about frog conservation:

• Scant froggy finds spark worries
• Froggy finds raise hopes for Haiti
• Three new frogs leap into spotlight
• Amphibians wanted ... alive
• 12 froggy finds from India
• Fantastic frogs from Colombia

Gerald Allen / Conservation International

These fangblenny fish, observed in the coral reefs around Bali, appear to represent a new species in the genus Meiacanthus. Click on the image to see a slideshow featuring nine new finds from Bali.

Researchers say they've seen nine potentially new species in the waters surrounding one of the world's most exotic locales, the island of Bali — but they've also seen the damage that humans can do to a once-pristine environment.

The good-news, bad-news report comes from Conservation International, a nonprofit group that has been cataloging new species and the perils they face for decades. Over the past three years, Conservation International's Rapid Assessment Program has documented 953 species of fish and 397 species of coral in Bali's reefs.

The group is working with local partners at the request of the Bali provincial government and fisheries officials, who are looking for advice on how best to protect the region's marine riches.

"We carried out this present survey in 33 sites around Bali, nearly completing a circle around it, and were impressed by much of what we saw," Mark Erdmann, senior adviser for the CI Indonesia marine program, said in a news release. "There was a tremendous variety of habitats, surprisingly high levels of diversity, and the coral reefs appeared to be in an active stage of recovery from bleaching, destructive fishing and crown-of-thorns starfish outbreaks in the 1990s."

This year, a two-week survey identified eight species of fish and one species of coral that may be new to science, Conservation International said. Those species include two types of cardinalfish, two varieties of dottyfish, a sandperch, a fangblenny, a garden eel, a goby fish and a previously unknown type of bubble coral.

Check out this slideshow to see the marine menagerie.

Scientists have been tracking the health of Bali's coral reefs since those grim years of the 1990s. "Compared to 12 years ago, we observed an increase in healthy coral reef cover in the area surveyed, indicating a recovery phase. That is why it needs serious protection and management, to complete the revitalization," said Ketut Sarjana Putra, CI Indonesia's acting executive director.

As good as all this sounds, the researchers also saw causes for concern: During this year's two-week survey, divers spotted just three reef sharks and three Napoleon wrasse — which is about as many large reef predators as a diver would see in a healthy reef system during the course of a single dive. Plastic pollution was "omnipresent," Conservation International reported, and the team saw how fishing operations were encroaching on no-take areas in West Bali National Park.

The team recommended that the Bali government come up with a priority list for areas that need immediate protection. The experts also saw a need for better spatial planning to reduce the clash between fishing and marine tourism, for stronger commitment to enforcement and public funding for protected areas, and stricter measures to manage pollution from plastics, sewage and agricultural runoff.

"This RAP survey highlights how important these marine protected areas are to improving economic returns from marine tourism while also providing food security and ensuring the sustainability of small-scale artisanal fisheries,” Erdmann said in the news release.

More beauties from the search for new species:

• RAP stars rock the animal world
• Lost frogs found in Haiti
• Three new frogs leap into spotlight
• Amphibians wanted ... alive
• New species from New Guinea
• Scientists finish first sea census
• Deep-sea creatures of the Coral Sea
• The top 10 new species from 2009
• Beautiful biodiversity in Brazil
• New Guinea's 'Lost World' revisited
• Indonesia's 'Garden of Eden'
• Papua New Guinea's new species
• Marine marvels from Papua New Guinea
• Biological treasures from Borneo
• Celebrities of the Celebes Sea
• 12 froggy finds from India
• Fantastic frogs from Colombia
• Aliens lurk in Antarctic depths
• The strange species of Suriname
• Vulnerable new species in Brazil
• Discoveries from Vietnam's 'Green Corridor'
• Endangered species of the Mekong Delta
• New species from Australia's coral reefs
• Thousands of new species in ocean's depths
• Hundreds of new species amid the Himalayas
• New species found Down Under .. underground
• Eight 'extinct' species found alive and kicking  

Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page or following @b0yle on Twitter. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," Alan's book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds. 

Robin Moore / iLCP

The Macaya Breast-spot Landfrog was rediscovered during a post-quake expedition to Haiti, almost 20 years after the previous sighting. Click through a slideshow featuring the exotic "lost" frogs of Haiti.

Conservationists have rediscovered six species of frogs in Haiti, offering a ray of hope for the country on the one-year anniversary of the earthquake that left it in shambles.

"I am very wary of highlighting frogs at this time in Haiti. Obviously the country has very pressing needs, but I think ultimately they are a symbol of something more hopeful," said Robin Moore, an amphibian expert with Conservation International who helped lead the expedition that found the frogs.

Among the highlights are a frog that calls like a ventriloquist that was last seen in 1991 and only known from a few individuals; a frog with unusually striking blue sapphire-colored eyes; and a frog that's the size of a grape, one of the smallest amphibians in the world. (Click through our slideshow featuring the cute little guys.)

Remote forest refuges
"A common assumption about Haiti is that there is nothing left to save," Moore said in a news release announcing the frog rediscoveries. "That is not entirely true. There are biologically rich pockets of environmental health and natural wealth in Haiti."

That said, less than 2 percent of Haiti's original forest remains, and the freshwater ecosystems on which Haitians depend are mostly degraded, according to the conservationists.

Moore and colleague Blair Hedges from Pennsylvania State University led an expedition to the mountains of southwestern Haiti to look for long-lost frogs. Over the course of eight days, they scoured the trees, riverbeds and ground for amphibians. They found 25 unique species out of the country's 49 known native species, including six critically endangered species not seen in at least a decade.

"We were hopeful that we would find some amphibians," Moore told me. "I was extremely surprised at just how many we found of these critically endangered species."

He added that the discoveries serve as an incentive to keep conservation efforts alive in the struggling country.

"As long as we have a decent patch of forest left, we have something to protect and something to build on," Moore said. "You have opportunities for developing alternatives such as shade-grown coffee, which is a very attractive alternative to current cash crops."

Search for lost frogs
The announcement of the six rediscovered frogs comes on the heels of a Conservation International expedition to western Colombia that scared up three previously unknown frog species.

The Colombian species include a long-nosed beaked toad that can camouflage itself as a dead leaf, an only-somewhat-poisonous rocket frog with flashes of red on its legs, and a red-eyed frog that's so mysterious scientists don't know exactly how to classify it.

Conservation International's expeditions to Colombia and Haiti expeditions are part of the group's "Search for Lost Frogs" campaign, which was launched in the summer of 2010 to locate frog species that have not been seen for at least a decade and are feared to be extinct. Conservation International and its partners at the Amphibian Specialist Group of IUCN plan to launch a new campaign later this year.

More species lost and found:

• Three new frogs leap into spotlight
• Amphibians wanted ... alive
• New species from New Guinea
• Scientists finish first sea census
• Deep-sea creatures of the Coral Sea
• The top 10 new species from 2009
• Beautiful biodiversity in Brazil
• New Guinea's 'Lost World' revisited
• Indonesia's 'Garden of Eden'
• Papua New Guinea's new species
• Marine marvels from Papua New Guinea
• Biological treasures from Borneo
• Celebrities of the Celebes Sea
• 12 froggy finds from India
• Fantastic frogs from Colombia
• Aliens lurk in Antarctic depths
• The strange species of Suriname
• Vulnerable new species in Brazil
• Discoveries from Vietnam's 'Green Corridor'
• Endangered species of the Mekong Delta
• New species from Australia's coral reefs
• Thousands of new species in ocean's depths
• Hundreds of new species amid the Himalayas
• New species found Down Under .. underground
• Eight 'extinct' species found alive and kicking  

John Roach is a contributing writer for msnbc.com. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by hitting the "like" button on the Cosmic Log Facebook page or following msnbc.com's science editor, Alan Boyle, on Twitter (@b0yle).

Evan Twomey / WWF

The frog known as Ranitomeya benedicta is one of more than 1,200 species discovered in South America's Amazon region over the past decade. Click through a slideshow featuring the amazing species of the Amazon.

The World Wildlife Fund is highlighting the more than 1,200 species that have been discovered in the Amazon region over the past decade, in hopes of gaining support for protecting such species over the decades to come.

The WWF's 58-page report -- titled "Amazon Alive: A Decade of Discoveries 1999-2009" -- is being released to coincide with this month's conference on the Convention on Biological Diversity in Nagoya, Japan. Representatives from scores of nations around the world are meeting to consider strategies for preserving biodiversity, in the Amazon and elsewhere.

The Amazon rainforest, which takes in areas of nine countries (Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana), is one of the world's biggest hot spots for diversity. Those 1,200 species average out to one discovery every three days. But the Amazon is also under threat: Over the past 50 years, at least 17 percent of the rainforest has been destroyed, the WWF says. That translates into an area twice the size of Spain.

"What's scary to me is the fact that we're losing so much habitat every day in the Amazon," Meg Symington, the WWF's managing director for the Amazon, told me today. "If we keep destroying the habitat, we don't even know how many species we're losing."

Traditionally, one of every 10 known species in the world has been found in the Amazon. "Once everything is known, I expect it will be more like 30 percent of all species on Earth," she said.

Some of those species could be important for human welfare as well as the health of the Amazonian ecosystem. As an example, Symington pointed to poison-tree frogs such as Ranitomeya benedicta, discovered in 2008 in Peru. "They have chemicals in their skin that turn out to be very important for medical purposes," she said.

So what do all these species need to be protected from? The threats include deforestation for cattle ranching and agriculture, as well as mining and infrastructure projects that have been planned with too much emphasis on economic development and not enough emphasis on environmental protection. For example, a tree porcupine on the WWF's species list was discovered during wildlife rescue efforts at a hydropower dam site.

The boom in biofuels has led to an even more intense Amazonian land rush, Symington said. "What was once very inaccessible is now part of the global economy," she observed.

The "Amazon Alive" study was commissioned with the idea of releasing it during the biodiversity conference, Symington said. WWF is hoping this month's meeting will spark new efforts to protect the world's biological wellsprings. "Since the Amazon really is an ecosystem that transcends national boundaries, we think there are many opportunities for regional collaboration on protected areas," she said.

That's the approach that the WWF has been taking, illustrated by its collaboration with a Latin American regional network known as Redparques. Symington said she'd like to see the countries represented at the biodiversity meeting "recommit themselves to aggressive targets" for habitat protection -- targets that have been unmet so far.

To get a sense of what's at stake, check out this slideshow of exotic species from the WWF's list. And then feast your eyes on these other examples of biodiversity:

• New species from New Guinea
• Scientists finish first sea census
• Amphibians wanted ... alive
• Three 'lost' amphibians found
• Deep-sea creatures of the Coral Sea
• The top 10 new species from 2009
• Beautiful biodiversity in Brazil
• New Guinea's 'Lost World' revisited
• Indonesia's 'Garden of Eden'
• Marine marvels from Papua New Guinea
• Biological treasures from Borneo
• Celebrities of the Celebes Sea
• 12 froggy finds from India
• Fantastic frogs from Colombia
• Aliens lurk in Antarctic depths
• The strange species of Suriname
• Vulnerable new species in Brazil
• Discoveries from Vietnam's 'Green Corridor'
• Endangered species of the Mekong Delta
• New species from Australia's coral reefs
• Thousands of new species in ocean's depths
• Hundreds of new species amid the Himalayas
• New species found Down Under .. underground
• Eight 'extinct' species found alive and kicking

Visit the Cosmic Log page on Facebook and hit the "Like" button. You can also follow @boyle on Twitter. And if you really want to be friendly, ask me about "The Case for Pluto."