The tale of Old Rip, the horned frog that allegedly lived 31 years sealed within a courthouse cornerstone, is as persistent as the creature’s fabled ability to hibernate for a century. Old Rip’s seemingly impossible survival hooked the imagination of Eastland County citizens when he was unearthed and found alive in 1928, after a courthouse reconstruction prompted the opening of the time capsule. This incredible story has been documented by the City of Fort Worth, chronicling the life and mythology surrounding the beloved horned lizard.
Nowadays, though, seeing a horned frog dash across the Texan landscape is more myth than reality. Blame it on rampant urbanization, or the even more aggressive fire ants that prey on the lizards’ young and have contributed to the decline of their primary food source – harvester ants – due to the widespread use of pesticides. “The iconic and official reptile of the state of Texas is threatened, and populations continue to decline due to habitat destruction and land fragmentation,” reports the Fort Worth Zoo’s exhibit, shedding light on the precarious position of these tiny dynamos, per the City of Fort Worth.
But despair not, reptile enthusiasts; the Fort Worth Zoo’s commitment to conservation is making strides to slowly reintroduce healthy populations back into the wild. Their Mountains & Desert exhibit, part of Texas Wild!, boasts of a pioneering breeding program in collaboration with Texas Christian University (TCU) and Texas Parks & Wildlife. This program has seen hundreds of hatchlings released into public and private lands, championing the survival of the Texas horned lizard. The zoo was notably the first to successfully breed the species in captivity, a significant feat in the quest to revitalize these creatures’ declining numbers…