The Golden Toad

An Ecological Mystery and the Search for a Lost Species

As young boys, Trevor and Kyle Ritland were fascinated by the golden toad of Costa Rica, a brilliant species their biologist father showed them in his projector's slide shows. Native to only one wind-battered ridgeline high on the continental divide above the cloud forests of Monteverde, thousands of golden toads would congregate for a few weeks each year in ephemeral pools among the twisted roots to mate, deposit their offspring, and retreat again beneath the earth. But from one year to the next, the toads disappeared without a trace. Since then, only rumors remain, which beg the question: could the golden toad still be alive?

In The Golden Toad, Trevor and Kyle set off to investigate an environmental mystery with unexpected revelations, a story that speaks to our own collective and uncertain future. Guided by Costa Rican naturalists—including the last person to have seen the golden toad alive—Trevor searches for survivors while Kyle hunts the killer, and their paths lead them through an imperiled forest, a deadly pandemic, and a changing climate, intertwining at the site of the golden toad's last emergence deep in Monteverde's Bosque Eterno de Los Niños.

The Golden Toad changes the conversation around extinction, climate change, and conservation while exploring environmental grief, resurrection, and hope in a changing world.

©2025 Kyle Ritland and Trevor Ritland (P)2025 Tantor Media