When special-education teacher Thomas Ackermann comes home from work, he heads straight for the basement of his house in Aachen, Germany. Behind the door of his self-described “man cave” lies a four-by-four-meter world of mossy logs, trickling water and humid air — an astonishing micro-jungle he has built in a dozen terrariums. “I could watch them for hours,” he says, pointing at thumbnail-sized electric-yellow poison dart frogs that hop between bromeliads. But the rarest residents are the ones he tends most carefully: Ecuadorian stump-foot toads — delicate green amphibians with black speckles and neon-orange feet. Barely larger than half a thumb, they were declared extinct 15 years ago. The culprits were habitat loss, a warming climate and a lethal fungal disease, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, which has contributed to declines in hundreds of amphibian species worldwide. The post You Can Foster an Endangered Species in Your Home appeared first on Reasons to be Cheerful.