Pocket Frogs teams up with rescue project to raise funds for frogs

PocketFrogs

Creators of this popular iPhone and iPad app, Pocket Frogs, are helping spread the word about and raise money for the Panama Amphibian Rescue and Conservation Project.

There’s so much to love about everyone’s new favorite free iPhone and iPad app, Pocket Frogs: the adorable and colorful little frogs that players guide through various habitats; the opportunity to breed more than 10,000 frogs to produce new, rare and even more colorful frogs; and the element of social networking, giving users the option to trade frogs with friends and even give them as gifts.

And then there’s the fact that for the last week, Pocket Frogs creator NimbleBit has used this popular platform to spread the word about the global amphibian crisis and help raise funds for the Panama Amphibian Rescue and Conservation Project via our text FROG campaign. With their help, we’ve been able to reach a new audience full of frog lovers and we’re bringing in some of the money that we need to care for and breed endangered species of frogs outside of the virtual world. For this we are very grateful, both to NimbleBit and to Pocket Frogs players!

The goal of Pocket Frogs, which was downloaded more than 1 million times in the first two weeks after NimbleBit released it, is to breed different frogs and maintain their habitats. Die-hard players aim to complete certain challenges that revolve around breeding a number of specific frogs of various colors and patterns. But it’s not just frog lovers singing the game’s praises—within one week, Pocket Frogs rocketed to the No. 1 spot for free iPad apps and the No. 3 spot for free iPhone apps.

I can certainly see why. Although I haven’t yet progressed much beyond breeding a green folium anura with a yellow pruni anura, I’m hooked. My nursery is filled with a rainbow of frogs—I’ve also got an egg or two in there ready to hatch in the next few hours—and the dragonflies in the pond don’t stand a chance against my frogs’ smooth moves. Today I even won the “frog basics” award, reached the second level and bought a new habitat. My own primary objective as I continue playing? To breed two frogs that create Panamanian golden frog-like offspring!

So from the frog rescuers at the Panama Amphibian Rescue and Conservation Project: Thanks, NimbleBit, for your part in helping us save the real frogs!

Lindsay Renick Mayer, Smithsonian’s National Zoo