{"id":105222,"date":"2018-07-27T22:05:36","date_gmt":"2018-07-28T03:05:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/?p=105222"},"modified":"2018-07-27T22:17:45","modified_gmt":"2018-07-28T03:17:45","slug":"gollum-on-the-brink-of-extinction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/2018\/07\/27\/105222-gollum-on-the-brink-of-extinction\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Gollum&#8221; on the brink of extinction"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"intro\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/GollumToad.jpg\" class=\"no-lazyload\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-105224 no-lazyload\" src=\"http:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/GollumToad-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/GollumToad-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/GollumToad-600x337.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/GollumToad.jpg 660w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>No, it doesn&#8217;t reside in the depths of the Misty Mountains, or mutter &#8220;My precious, my precious&#8230;&#8221; in the dark.<\/p>\n<p>However, the possible fate of a particular toad from Malaysia, that gets its name from everyone&#8217;s favorite duplicitous, conniving, yet lovable, precious-coveting character from <em>The Hobbit<\/em> and <em>The Lord of the Rings<\/em>, is concerning scientists after becoming the latest to join a list of animals at great risk of extinction.<\/p>\n<p>This amphibian, which is known as\u00a0<i>Ansonia smeagol<\/i>, was given its name due to the similarities scientists saw between it and Professor Tolkien&#8217;s famous creation.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Says Dr. Chan Kin Onn of the University of Singapore:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;Smeagol from Lord of the Rings is a semi-aquatic creature&#8230;&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;[It has] large eyes, occurs up in the mountains and has long thin limbs. And funnily enough his digits are also extended. These are all characters that this little stream-toad also has.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The danger comes from the effect of tourist resort expansion on its habitat of upland streams at a mountaintop in mainland Malaysia.<\/p>\n<p>You can read more about this little guy, also known as the &#8220;Precious Stream-Toad&#8221;, as well as other species to make the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) Red List, at\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/science-environment-44712039\">BBC News<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>No, it doesn&#8217;t reside in the depths of the Misty Mountains, or mutter &#8220;My precious, my precious&#8230;&#8221; in&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2199,"featured_media":105224,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[153,495,149],"tags":[1324,3151,3152],"class_list":["post-105222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tolkien-life","category-miscellaneous","category-lotr","tag-gollum","tag-smeagol","tag-toad"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/GollumToad.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1tLoH-rn8","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2199"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105222"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105222\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":105340,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105222\/revisions\/105340"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}