I’ve always loved mystery stories. So I liked when Elizabeth Colbert, author of “The Sixth Extinction?” started her article by presenting the mystery of the disappearing golden frogs in Panama. She set the scene carefully, describing what seemed like tropical paradise – a common setting for murder mysteries. Then, she introduced the problem. Frogs which were once so abundant that the local market sold figurines of frogs holding cell phones were now nowhere to be found. She led us through the journey to solve the mystery, and introduced us to her fellow detectives. She carefully described the sights and sounds by describing a frog as “orangey red, like the forest floor” and another frog’s call as similar to “the sound of a champagne bottle being uncorked” so that we as readers could be detectives too. Meanwhile, she keeps us in suspense by interrupting the story to give background information on the history of mass extinctions. She also tells us that the mystery is not a recent one, nor is it restricted to Panama. Now, we know that the answer to the mystery will affect many amphibians, not just the golden frogs. We eventually learn that the culprit is a fungus called chrytids. However, she tells us that the real culprit may be humans, for transmitting it through clinics and hospitals.