New conservation report highlights focus on the protection of lesser-known species that are critical to ecosystem health.

At the edge of a mountain stream is where conservation ecologist Joshua Weeber spends a lot of his time, scanning the moss-covered rocks for something most people have never heard of - a frog the size of a fingernail. It is not glamorous work, but it is vital.

Weeber works with the Threatened Endemic Species Unit in the Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT). He is part of a group of researchers and conservationists who are pushing South Africa to think differently about wildlife protection. Rhinos, lions and elephants dominate fundraising drives, but their concern is for the quieter creatures - the amphibians, reptiles, moles and more whose disappearance would unravel the foundations of entire ecosystems.

Their work is slow, difficult and often underfunded. "The majority of amphibian and reptile species in South Africa ... we know very little about their biology and their distribution," says Weeber.

This lack of spatial information means many cannot be officially listed as threatened, leaving them invisible in spatial plans, environmental assessments and conservation prioritisation.

The species are overlooked, even though they are a part of "fragile food webs", says Dr Oliver Cowan, a conservation and data scientist at the EWT. If small, unstudied species vanish,...