Amphibians and People
AMPHIBIAWEB

 

(Translations may not be accurate.)

Amphibians and People

Update in Progress, check back soon! March 2021

Wherever amphibians exist, local people have incorporated these creatures into their cultures, art, and observations of life. The relationship between amphibians and people have been ceremonial, inspirational and practical as sources of food and pharmaceuticals. Amphibians have inspired poems and verses from so many poets, from Robert Yeats and Lewis Carroll to Shakespeare, to name a few. Maybe it is because, even at a glance, we can feel some elemental connection to their amphibious natural history, dependent on water, yet free of it, too, living in soil, tree and surprising us from crevices. Not only can amphibians surprise us, often hidden in plain sight, but they can dazzle us from forested shadows with their flashy colors or delight even while they walk down a rainy street.

We are in progress of adding new content on how amphibians have featured in the lives of people (in art, in ceremony, as food, as medicine) because understanding species and their impact on all aspect of humans is critical to conserving them.

Kabuki play by Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1798-1861), woodcut art, original from Library of Congress.