It’s been an eventful 75 years for the Hula painted frog. Having clung to existence while its closest relatives embraced the cuddle of extinction, it was then discovered by scientists, lost for decades, declared extinct and turned into a symbol of a conservation crisis, before literally hopping back into the limelight. It’s the Frog That Lived, Then Died, Then Lived Again.

The Hula painted frog was discovered in March 1940, when Heinrich Mendelssohn and Heinz Steinitz spotted two beautiful individuals in the wetlands of Israel’s Hula Lake. They had distinctive dark bellies with white spots, and streaks of olive, black and rust on their backs. A third adult was found in 1955, and that was the last anyone saw of