Most of us haven't given our amphibious friends much thought since a long-ago twilight when we chased them across a muddy river bank... But today's frogs need all the help they can get if they're to leap forward into the next millennium.

Over the past decade, dozens of frog species have mysteriously vanished. Like the canary

in a coal mine, some believe their curious disappearance might be a harbinger of a much greater environmental disaster soon to follow...