2026Amphibians of Portugal - Giving a Face to Absence - Set

Between 1853 and 2026, more than 360 species that are part of Portugal's natural heritage have been featured on stamps. Amphibians, however, have not. They were the only group of vertebrates not to feature on stamps and the most threatened on the planet: around 41 per cent of species are globally at risk of extinction. This issue fills that gap, not as a celebration, but as a diagnosis. Portugal is home to around twenty native species. As vertebrates with dual citizenship both aquatic and terrestrial they act as environmental sentinels: their permeable skin detects, before we do, pollution, habitat loss and the climatic tipping points that are reshaping ecosystems. They devour insects by the hundreds, controlling agricultural pests and disease carrying mosquitoes a silent service that our food supply and our health rarely take into account. Yet their conservation receives less than 4 per cent of the global funding allocated to the rest of biodiversity.