amphibians

In one corner, we have the "hairy" frog, Trichobatrachus robustus, hailing from Cameroon.

In the other corner, meet the Spanish ribbed newt, Pleurodeles waltl, hailing from the Iberian peninsula.

Which skin-busting, bone-poking amphibian will win the PopSci deathmatch?

Hara Woltz's clients don't say much -- mostly just ribbit. A landscape architect and biologist at Columbia University, Woltz has undertaken the daunting task of creating road-crossing tunnels for amphibians and reptiles, based on different animals' preferences for different tunnel attributes. Building herpetological crosswalks might seem absurd, but the stakes are high: nearly one-third of the world's amphibian species and many of its reptiles are spiraling toward extinction due to habitat loss and fragmentation from human development.