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Frog calls are iconic sounds of summer in Australia. There are more than 240 species native to Australia, almost all of which are found nowhere else on Earth.
While some of Australia’s frog species prefer the cooler months, spring and summer are the best times to see and hear the majority of them. This is particularly true in tropical Australia, where most frog species only emerge from their hiding places in the wet season, filling summer nights with their choruses.
Most of us will hear frogs before we see them. In all Australian frog species, male frogs call to attract female frogs to mate with. Each species has a unique advertisement call, so you don’t need to see a frog to identify it.
Males typically call from near water bodies, where they hope to breed, and call mostly at night, preferring to shelter in the heat of the day. As a result, the best place to encounter frogs is near a water body such as a pond, creek or wetland, and the best time is after dark.
This article contains recordings of six unique frog calls. Depending where you live, you might just hear one on a quiet, summer night. But first, let’s explore why frogs are so important to our ecosystems.
Frogs are exquisitely adapted to almost all kinds of habitats in Australia, from rainforests to deserts. In some of the wettest forests, some frogs such as the northern ornate nursery frog (Cophixalus ornatus) have done away with the need for tadpoles, developing into tiny frogs in the egg.
The stonemason toadlet, Uperoleia lithomoda Jodi Rowley, Author provided
In the driest parts of Australia, where it doesn’t rain for months at a time, frog species such as the eastern water-holding frog (Cyclorana platycephala) spend most of their lives underground. These frogs are protected from dehydration by a “cocoon” of their own skin and skin secretions. They only pop above the surface when it’s wet enough for them to breed in the flood waters.
While many species are common, more than 30 are threatened with extinction. On top of that, we’ve already lost at least four species — part of out natural heritage, gone forever.
The major frog threats are disease (particularly chytridiomycosis, caused by the amphibian chytrid fungus), habitat loss and modification, introduced species and climate change.
We should care that our frogs are disappearing, as they are an important part of healthy ecosystems. Frogs are major consumers of invertebrates, and are also eaten by a wide array of predators including fish, birds and mammals. Tadpoles may also be the dominant grazers in aquatic systems, helping keep streams from clogging up with algae. When frogs disappear, other animals follow, and ecosystems are forever altered.
When meeting your local frogs, be careful not to disturb them or their habitat, and clean your shoes if going to more than one area of frog habitat so you don’t accidentally spread frog disease. One of the best ways to learn about your local frogs, and to help understand and conserve them, is by recording their calls using the free FrogID app.
Here are some of the frog species you are likely to hear, and maybe even see, this summer.
1. Peron’s tree frog
Peron’s tree frog (Litoria peronii) is a large frog species that can be found in southern Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and southeastern South Australia.
With cream to dark grey skin flecked with tiny emerald spots, cross-shaped pupils, and a loud, laugh-like call, this frog species is very commonly encountered around our homes — often hiding in pot plants, watering cans or even our letterboxes.
2. Motorbike frog
While the haunting call of the moaning frog (Heleioporus eyrei) fills autumn and winter nights around Perth, the motorbike frog (Litoria moorei) makes up a large part of Perth’s summer soundtrack.
Common in backyards throughout the southwest of Western Australia, this species is named after its drawn-out call, resembling an old motorbike racing up the street, changing gears.
This large tree frog, variably marbled with green and gold, often basks in the sun on reeds during the day.
3. Striped marsh frog
The striped marsh frog (Limnodynastes peronii) is commonly heard but rarely seen throughout its range along eastern Australia from north Queensland to Tasmania, and into the eastern edge of South Australia.
Its call is familiar to many, resembling a tennis ball being hit, or a dripping tap. This species loves backyard ponds, and is found even in the most built-up areas of cities, creating foamy nests for their eggs after a successful night of calling.
Adults have smooth, striped brown skin, and long, spidery toes. Males can be distinguished by females as they have much more robust arms.
4. Banjo frog
Banjo frogs occur throughout much of Australia, with a familiar loud “bonk” call, somewhat resembling the pluck of a banjo string reverberating from dams, wetlands and slow-flowing sections of streams and rivers.
During dry times, banjo frogs bury themselves underground, emerging after, or sometimes just before, summer rains. They are large, rather solid, frogs with a round snout, and are often mistaken for cane toads.
There are four species of banjo frog. In the southeast, the eastern banjo frog (Limnodynastes dumerilii) is very common, particularly in farm dams. Meanwhile, the northern banjo frog (Limnodynastes terraereginae) lives in northern NSW and throughout much of Queensland.
The giant banjo frog (Limnodynastes interioris) can be found in inland NSW and Victoria, and the western banjo frog (Limnodynastes dorsalis) is found in southwestern Western Australia.
5. Stonemason toadlet
The stonemason toadlet (Uperoleia lithomoda) is a tiny brownish-grey burrowing frog found across the top of Australia: in north Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia.
This species emerges from underground after heavy monsoonal rains, and males produces an extraordinarily loud call that sounds like a harsh “click”.
With bumpy skin, they resemble toads enough to be called “toadlets”, and are often mistaken for young cane toads (Rhinella marina).
6. Eastern dwarf tree frog
The eastern dwarf tree frog (Litoria fallax) is highly adaptable and usually found along the east coast, from north Queensland to the borders of NSW and Victoria.
Like the motorbike frog, the eastern dwarf tree frog is often seen during the day, basking in the sun, and will even call during the day on vegetation far from water.
Frogs are one of the most threatened groups of animals on Earth. At least four of Australia’s 240 known frog species are extinct and 36 are nationally threatened. After last summer’s bushfires, we needed rapid information to determine which frogs required our help.
This was a challenging task. The fire zone ranged from southern Queensland through New South Wales and Victoria, to Kangaroo Island off South Australia. The area was too large for scientists alone to survey, especially with COVID-19 travel restrictions.
But all was not lost. Thousands of everyday citizens across the fire zone, armed with their mobile phones, began monitoring their local frogs through an app called FrogID.
In research published today, we reveal how 45 frog species, some rare and threatened, were recorded calling after the fires. This has allowed us to collate a snapshot of where frog species are surviving – at least for now.
The FrogID app means anyone can help monitor frog numbers. Jodi Rowley
Scientists knew the damage to many plant and animal species was likely to be dramatic, particularly for species already in trouble. Many of Australia’s frog species are already vulnerable, due to pressures such as disease and habitat loss. There was a very real risk the fires had pushed many frog species closer to extinction. However, information on how frogs respond to fires has historically been limited.
FrogID is a free app downloaded to smart phones. Led by the Australian Museum, the project allows anyone to record a frog call and upload it. The FrogID team then identifies the species by its call, to create a national frog database.
Since the app launched in November 2017, more than 13,000 citizen scientists have recorded the calls of about 220,000 frogs across Australia. Before last summer’s fires, app users had submitted 2,655 recordings of 66 frog species in what would later become fire zones. This gave us a remarkable understanding of the frogs present before the fires.
In some places, the fires burnt so intensely it was hard to imagine any wildlife survived. Dean Lewins/AAP
Within four months of the fires, app users submitted 632 recordings. These confirmed the existence of 45 of the 66 frog species known to live in the fire zones. Hearteningly, all 33 summer-breeding frog species recorded before the fires were also detected afterwards. In other words, there were no obviously “missing” frog species.
The frog species recorded most frequently in burnt areas were common, broadly distributed species of low conservation concern. These include the common eastern froglet (Crinia signifera) and striped marsh frog (Limnodynastes peronii).
However, rare and threatened species were also recorded in fire-damaged areas. These included:
the vulnerable southern barred frog (Mixophyes balbus), which lives in patches of forest along the NSW east coast. The species was recorded ten times after the fires in northern NSW
the mountain frog (Philoria kundagungan), endangered in NSW and known only from the headwaters of streams in a few pockets of rainforest in far northern NSW and southern Queensland. It is rarely encountered but was recorded once after the fires
the endangered giant barred frog (Mixophyes iteratus), found in forest from southeast Queensland to central NSW. It was recorded twice after the fires.
There was no clear trend in the ecological group or lifestyle of species that were detected post-fire. Burrowing frogs, tree frogs and ground-dwelling frogs were all detected, as were stream, pond, and land-breeding species.
In many places, frogs survived the inferno against the odds. Jodi Rowley
A powerful tool
The FrogID records are good news. They show some species have survived in the short term, and male frogs are calling to attract female frogs to mate with.
But there is still much we don’t know about the fate of these frogs. For example, many frogs species in southeastern Australia don’t call in the cooler months, so we don’t yet have a clear picture of how these species have fared over winter.
The frogs’ longer-term prospects also remain uncertain. Fire damage varies dramatically from place to place, and the survival of a frog species in one burnt area does not guarantee its survival in another. We remain worried about species with small geographic ranges, especially rainforest species more sensitive to fire.
We urgently need more information on how last summer’s fires affected Australia’s frogs. This is particularly important given the more frequent and severe fires predicted under climate change, combined with all the other threats frogs face.
Traditional biodiversity surveys by professionals will be needed. This is especially true for frog species of high conservation concern at remote or inaccessible sites, for which the FrogID app has little or no data.
But continued data collection by citizen scientists, through projects such as FrogID, will remain powerful tools. They allow information to be gathered quickly and at scale. This raises the chances that species suffering most after a catastrophic event might get the help they need.
This article is a preview of Flora, Fauna, Fire, a multimedia project launching on Monday July 13. The project tracks the recovery of Australia’s native plants and animals after last summer’s bushfire tragedy. Sign up to The Conversation’s newsletter for updates.
In late summer, male northern corroboree frogs call for a female mate. It’s a good time to survey their numbers: simply call out “Hey, frog!” in a low, deep voice and the males call back.
This year, the survey was vital. Bushfires had torn through the habitat of the critically endangered species. We urgently needed to know how many survived.
In late February we trekked into Kosciuszko National Park, through a landscape left charred by the ferocious Dunns Road fire.
We surveyed the scene, calling out: “Hey, frog!”. At ponds not severely burnt, reasonable numbers of northern corroboree frogs responded. At badly burnt sites where frogs had been found for 20 years, we were met with silence. The adults there had likely died.
After completing our surveys we collected melted cameras we’d deployed eight months earlier to monitor water levels in the ponds. Some weeks later, these would reveal just what the frogs had endured.
Northern corroboree frog on burnt moss after the fires. Ben Scheele
A tiny frog with a big problem
Northern corroboree frogs are tiny – no longer than three centimetres long – and feature distinctive yellow and black stripes. They are listed as critically endangered, but are more abundant than their close relative, the southern corroboree frog.
They’re found only in the high country of southern New South Wales and the ACT. Before last summer’s bushfires, just a few thousand northern corroboree frogs were thought to remain in the wild. Our preliminary post-fire assessment indicates a substantial number might have died where fires were severe.
Caught on camera
Of the frogs’ two key habitat areas in NSW, one was burnt by the fires and one was left untouched. Over the border in the ACT, the fire damage was relatively slight, but the worst came later.
Heavy rain after the fires filled ponds with ash and sediment. Ben Scheele
After the fires, heavy rain in denuded burnt catchments produced water runoff laden with sediment. Some frog breeding habitat was eroded and filled with silt and ash. Once-mossy ponds were now gravel and ash.
In March 2019, we’d set up cameras to take one photograph a day, to monitor water levels in ponds. The fires melted the cameras, and some were also waterlogged. One of the authors, Ben Scheele, took them home and left them in his garage, assuming the footage was lost.
But several weeks later, bored during the COVID-19 lockdowns, he chiselled open the warped casing and removed the memory cards. Amazingly, most still worked.
They contained a fascinating series of photos. Some revealed how a number of ponds largely escaped the fires, only to be destroyed afterwards by flooding.
The series below shows a pond in Kosciuszko National Park. Watch the transition from autumn to deep winter snow, then to dry earth before the fire and its smoky aftermath (when the camera had fallen to the ground):
A frog emergency
Australia is home to around 240 frog species, most found nowhere else in the world.
The expert panel advising the federal government on bushfire recovery has identified 16 frog species likely to be severely affected by last summer’s fires.
All but one was listed as threatened by the IUCN prior to the fires. Importantly, the panel noted not much is known about how Australian frogs respond to fire.
Many Australian frog species have adapted to survive fire. But last summer, fires tore through areas where such events are extremely rare.
This includes World Heritage rainforests in northern NSW, home to the mountain frog, found nowhere else on Earth. How these frogs will respond to the fires remains to be seen.
For species associated with streams, such as the Barred River frogs, the impacts of fire may not be immediately apparent. Males typically stay near streams and may have escaped the flames, but females spend much time away from streams and may have died. These frogs are long-lived, so it may be many years before population declines are detected.
A stuttering frog after a fire in Gibraltar Range National Park last summer. Jodi Rowley
A shared fate
The effects of last summer’s fires on frogs are likely to be felt for years to come. For example, regrowing forests use lots of water, which will affect species in forested areas such as the northern corroboree frogs. This compounds a trend towards less rainfall under climate change, which is already driving their decline.
Annual northern corroboree frog monitoring conducted under the NSW government’s Saving Our Species program has been in place since 1998. This, coupled with the fact about half the known sites were fire-affected, puts us in a good position to better understand the species’ responses to fire by comparing burnt and unburnt sites in coming years.
The NSW government’s Saving Our Species program, and Taronga Conservation Society Australia, have started work on a captive “assurance” population for the species. The project, supported by Commonwealth funding, involves collecting eggs from the wild to safeguard the species’ unique genetic diversity.
Ongoing monitoring of other frog species is also critical. Importantly, anyone can get involved in helping understand frog responses to fire through the FrogID app.
Habitat degradation, climate change and disease threaten frogs globally. In this, they have much in common with humans. Last summer’s severe fires were a direct result of climate change. And of course, COVID-19 has killed more than 500,000 people in recent months.
Perhaps humanity should reflect on the fate we share with wildlife, and act.
David Hunter of the NSW Department of Planning, Industry and Environment contributed to this article.
What would the world be like without frogs? Earth is in its sixth mass extinction event and amphibians are among the hardest hit.
But in the island of New Guinea, home to 6% of the world’s frog species, there’s a rare opportunity to save them from the potential conservation disaster of a chytrid fungus outbreak.
The amphibian chytrid fungus is a microscopic, aquatic fungus that infects a protein in frog skin. It interferes with the balance of electrolytes and, in turn, effectively gives frogs a heart attack.
If the amphibian chytrid fungus invades New Guinea, we estimate 100 species of frogs could decline or become extinct. This disease, which emerged in the 1980s, has already wiped out 90 species of frogs around the world.
The New Guinean horned land frog, Sphenophryne cornuta, with young. These frogs are under threat from a fungus that has wiped out 90 frog species around the world. Stephen Richards
Collaborating with 30 international scientists, we developed a way to save New Guinea’s frog species from a mass extinction, one that’s predictable and preventable. We need urgent, unified, international action to prepare for the arrival of the deadly fungus, to slow its spread after it arrives and to limit its impact on the island.
It’s rare we can identify a conservation disaster before it occurs, but a long history of amphibian declines in Australia and South America has equipped us with the knowledge to protect areas where the amphibian chytrid fungus is yet to reach.
Why we should care about frogs
Like Australian frogs, New Guinea frogs may be particularly vulnerable to the chytrid fungus. These frogs share a close genetic relationship suggesting that, if exposed, New Guinea frogs may respond similarly to Australian ones, where around 16% of frog species are affected.
Losing so many species can have many terrible impacts. Tadpoles and frogs are important because they help recycle nutrients and break down leaf litter. They are also prey for larger mammals and reptiles, and predators of insects, invertebrates and small vertebrates. They help keep insect plagues, such as those from flies and mosquitoes, in check.
And species conservation is more expensive once the species are threatened. They can be more costly to collect and more precious to maintain, with a greater need for wider input from recovery groups to achieve rapid results.
In our study, we highlight the increased costs and requirements for establishing captive breeding for two species of closely related barred frog, one common and one threatened. We determined that waiting until a species is threatened dramatically increases the costs and effort required to establish a successful breeding program. The risks of it failing also increase.
Our research draws on lessons learned from other emerging diseases and approaches taken in other countries. By addressing the criteria of preparedness, prevention, detection, response and recovery, we detail a call for action to protect the frogs of New Guinea. It will require dedicated funding, a contingency plan for the likely, eventual arrival of the disease and a task force to oversee it.
This task force would oversee active monitoring for disease and prepare an action plan to implement on the disease’s arrival. We have already begun to establish facilities that can handle captive breeding and gene banking for frogs in collaboration with PNG counterparts.
The need for amphibian conservation in New Guinea also presents an opportunity for investment and training of local scientists. More species unknown to science will be described and the secret habits of these unique frogs will be discovered before they are potentially lost.
Conservation in New Guinea is complicated
The island of New Guinea is governed by Papua New Guinea on the eastern side and Indonesia on the western side. So it will take a coordinated approach to reduce risks in both countries for successful biosecurity.
Historically, New Guinea has had little import or tourism. But as the country develops, it becomes more at risk of emerging diseases through increased trade and and entry of tourists from chytrid-infected regions, especially with little biosecurity at entry ports.
What’s more, many species there are unknown to science and few ecological studies have documented their habitat requirements. Unlike Australia, many of New Guinea’s frogs have adapted for life in the wet rainforest.
Rather than developing into tadpoles that live in water, more than 200 frog species in New Guinea hatch from their eggs as fully formed baby frogs. It’s difficult for us to predict how the amphibian chytrid fungus will affect these frogs because Australia has only a handful of these types of species.
We don’t know how to remove the amphibian chytrid fungus from large areas once it has invaded, so strict biosecurity and conservation contingency planning is needed to protect New Guinea’s frogs.
For example, all incoming goods into New Guinea should be inspected for possible hitchhiker frogs that could carry chytrid. Camping or hiking equipment carried by tourists should also be closely inspected for attached mud, which could harbour the pathogen, as is the case in Australia.
International researchers have experience in emerging amphibian diseases. Papua New Guineans and Indonesians have traditional and ecological expertise. Together we have the opportunity to avert another mass decline of frogs. Without taking action, we could lose a hundred more species from the world and take another step towards mass extinction.
The Mossy Red-eyed Frog is among hundreds of species threatened with extinction at the hands of chytrid fungus. Jonathan Kolby/Honduras Amphibian Rescue and Conservation Center
It started off as an enigma. Biologists at field sites around the world reported that frogs had simply disappeared. Costa Rica, 1987: the golden toad, missing. Australia, 1979: the gastric brooding frog, gone. In Ecuador, Arthur’s stubfoot toad was last seen in 1988.
By 1990, cases of unexplained frog declines were piling up. These were not isolated incidents; it was a global pattern – one that we now know was due to chytridiomycosis, a fungal disease that was infecting and killing a huge range of frogs, toads and salamanders.
Our research, published today in Science, reveals the global number of amphibian species affected. At least 501 species have declined due to chytrid, and 90 of them are confirmed or believed extinct.
When biologists first began to investigate the mysterious species disappearances, they were at a loss to explain them. In many cases, species declined rapidly in seemingly pristine habitat.
Species declines typically have obvious causes, such as habitat loss or introduced species like rats. But this was different.
The first big breakthrough came in 1998, when a team of Australian and international scientists led by Lee Berger discovered amphibian chytrid fungus. Their research showed that this unusual fungal pathogen was the cause of frog declines in the rainforests of Australia and Central America.
However, there were still many unknowns. Where did this pathogen come from? How does it kill frogs? And why were so many different species affected?
After years of painstaking research, biologists have filled in many pieces of the puzzle. In 2009, researchers discovered how chytrid fungus kills frogs. In 2018, the Korean peninsula was pinpointed as the likely origin of the most deadly lineage of chytrid fungus, and human dispersal of amphibians suggested as a likely source of the global spread of the pathogen.
Yet as the mystery was slowly but surely unravelled, a key question remained: how many amphibian species have been affected by chytrid fungus?
Early estimates suggested that about 200 species were affected. Our new study reveals the total is unfortunately much larger: 501 species have declined, and 90 confirmed or suspected to have been killed off altogether.
The toll taken by chytrid fungus on amphibians around the world. Each bar represents one species; colours reveal the extent of population declines. Scheele et al. Science 2019
Devastating killer
These numbers put chytrid fungus in the worst league of invasive species worldwide, threatening similar numbers of species as rats and cats. The worst-hit areas have been in Australia and Central and South America, which have many different frog species, as well as ideal conditions for the growth of chytrid fungus.
Large species and those with small distributions and elevational ranges have been the mostly likely to experience severe declines or extinctions.
Together with 41 amphibian experts from around the world, we pieced together information on the timing of species declines using published records, survey data, and museum collections. We found that declines peaked globally in the 1980s, about 15 years before the disease was even discovered. This peak coincides with biologists’ anecdotal reports of unusual amphibian declines that occurred with increasing frequency in the late 1980s.
Encouragingly, some species have shown signs of natural recovery. Twelve per cent of the 501 species have begun to recover in some locations. But for the vast majority of species, population numbers are still far below what they once were.
Most of the afflicted species have not yet begun to bounce back, and many continue to decline. Rapid and substantial action from governments and conservation organisations is needed if we are to keep these species off the extinct list.
In Australia, chytrid fungus has caused the decline of 43 frog species. Of these, seven are now extinct and six are at high risk of extinction due to severe and ongoing declines. The conservation of these species is dependent on targeted management, such as the recovery program for the iconic corroboree frogs.
The southern corroboree frog: hopefully not a disappearing icon. Corey Doughty
Importantly, there are still some areas of the world that chytrid has not yet reached, such as New Guinea. Stopping chytrid fungus spreading to these areas will require a dramatic reduction in the global trade of amphibians, as well as increased biosecurity measures.
The unprecedented deadliness of a single disease affecting an entire class of animals highlights the need for governments and international organisations to take the threat of wildlife disease seriously. Losing more amazing species like the golden toad and gastric brooding frog is a tragedy that we can avoid.
Lee Berger is the 2018 recipient of the Frank Fenner Prize for Life Scientist of the Year, one of the Prime Minister’s Prizes for Science announced on October 17.
Lee’s research identified the cause of mysterious and devastating mass frog extinctions that spread across the world starting in the 1970s: it was a skin fungus.
With her colleague Lee Skerratt, here she describes the work that led to her prize, and what is still to be achieved for frog and wildlife conservation in Australia and across the world.
Combating fungi in frogs – why is this important?
Chytridiomycosis might be the worst disease in history. In a matter of decades, the illness cut a swathe through hundreds of species of frogs, causing mass extinctions as it spread out of Asia into Australia and the Americas.
Our research was the first to identify the cause – a novel chytrid fungus called Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis – but finding ways to combat the disease requires a lot more work.
Infected frogs are lethargic and experience excess skin shedding (this species is Mixophyes fasciolatus). Lee Berger, Author provided
Here in Australia, six species have already been driven extinct, and another seven are on the brink. Fortunately, in Australia we also have the unique expertise and perspective to prevent further losses if we devote adequate resources to the problem.
The keys to our research success have been a cross-disciplinary approach and a focus on delivering conservation outcomes.
Frog declines had been seen around the world from the late 1970s on, but it wasn’t until 1998 that we identified the chytrid fungus as the cause.
Parts of the fungus poke through an infected frog’s skin – as seen here under scanning electron microscope. Lee Berger, Author provided
Why had nobody else figured this out before?
Discovering the fungus on the skin of frogs was not rocket science, but rather applying the methods from one discipline to a problem in another. An outbreak investigation approach – using the tools of medicine for frog conservation – allowed us to diagnose the cause of the frog deaths.
The main reason this approach was tried in Australia was the broad knowledge and interest of the late Rick Speare, an extraordinarily eclectic scientist, medical doctor and vet. (Like the prize’s namesake Frank Fenner, he was comfortable using his medical expertise for the environment.)
Rick’s help was sought by Keith McDonald, a chief ranger of Queensland and a herpetologist. Keith was concerned about the health of North Queensland frogs after witnessing major declines in the south.
After looking at the pattern of declines the pair thought they saw the trail of an unknown infectious, waterborne disease. They applied for funds to search for a disease.
Green-eyed treefrogs (Litoria serrata) in the Queensland rainforest have declined due to chytridiomycosis. Lee Skerratt, Author provided
The idea that an infectious disease might be responsible for frog declines met resistance because of the belief that a pathogen can never cause extinction, because hosts will evolve resistance. So while Rick and Keith did obtain funding to tackle this urgent global mystery, it was only enough to support a single PhD student.
That PhD student was me, Lee Berger. To cut a long story short, my work in pathology and disease transmission experiments in frogs led to our conclusion that a novel and unusual fungus in the frogs’ skin caused a fatal disease and the mass amphibian deaths seen in North Queensland. As this was the first fungus from the phylum Chytridiomycota found to cause disease in a vertebrate, I had to develop many new methods to be able to further study the disease.
Now we are focused on understanding immunity to improve survival rates of the most threatened species of frogs in the wild.
This work has only been possible due to the extraordinary dedication of our students and staff and the collaboration with specialist scientists such as herpetologists, molecular biologists, immunologists, physiologists and others who have lent their expertise.
Common mistfrogs (Litoria rheocola) in the Queensland rainforest have also declined due to chytridiomycosis. Lee Skerratt, Author provided
What does this mean for Australia’s wildlife?
Our research has clearly shown that introduced diseases can have catastrophic impacts for conservation, much like the arrival of feral predators. In fact, disease can cause extinction much more quickly than predators, within months rather than years. The catastrophe of invasive species is a cost of globalisation that will be ongoing unless we respond.
The responsibility for wildlife lies with environment departments, but because health expertise is in other institutes, wildlife health can fall between the cracks.
We argue that continued support for bodies such as Wildlife Health Australia (WHA) is important. We also need a centre of expertise for outbreak investigation and strategic research to develop new tools for wildlife health management.
Biodiversity will miss out unless we support research that promises no direct and fast commercial return but benefits our nation in the longer term. In particular, and most urgently, Australia must save its frogs before it is too late.
Whistling tree frogs, Litoria verreauxii, are one of the species monitored around Canberra for their response to climate change. Catching the eye/flickr, CC BY-NC
We’ve arranged to meet in a gravel car park at the foot of Mt Majura, a darkening wedge above us in the dusk. My daughter and I wait in the car. It’s winter. A woman passes along the nearby pavement, guiding her way by torchlight. Canberra’s streets are kept dim, I learned recently, for the sake of astronomers at nearby Mt Stromlo observatory. In the decade I’ve lived here, I’ve had an ambivalent relationship with Canberra, but the idea of a city that strikes bargains with stargazing scientists to restrict light pollution leaking skyward is endearing.
There are other endearing things. One of them is the amount of bushland interspersed throughout the urban landscape. You can be in the middle of suburbia one minute and bushwalking on nearby Black Mountain, Mt Majura or Mt Ainslie ten minutes later. This kind of mixed landscape is ideal for the citizen science project we’re about to launch into this evening, as soon as the co-ordinator of the ACT and Region Frogwatch Program, Anke Maria Hoefer, arrives for our first training session.
The eastern common froglet, Crinia signifera. eyeweed/Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND
The program runs a community-based annual Frog Census framed against a rapid global decline in frog numbers over the past four decades and the extinction of many frog species. The census began in 2002, and the resulting long-term dataset on the abundance and distribution of local frogs has enabled additional research activities including a climate change project. We’ll take part in the latter, which monitors behavioural shifts in frogs through recording their calls at particular sites each week from June until October.
We’re here for a few reasons. One is to get a lived sense of climate change in our immediate urban surroundings. Plus, I want to make a contribution, however small, to the huge dilemma of climate change and its impacts; give my 13-year-old daughter a taste of scientific fieldwork in case it appeals to her; get to know our local surroundings better; and, as a writer, to think about practices that don’t simply observe or contemplate place but also participate in constructive activities at those same locales.
Numerous commentators have observed that the vast and intangible scale of climate change may be an impediment to more people taking action over our warming atmosphere. We know through the science that climate is shaped by the working of the entire planetary system – the earth’s interactive ocean, atmosphere, land and ice systems all linked to human activity. Depending on where you live, (but not in the Pacific Islands, the deltas of Bangladesh, Arctic Canada, or drought-stricken rural Australia), its impacts can seem far-removed from our own lives and the places we know best and care most about. With care, often, comes action. What can seem an amorphous, far-fetched threat is brought closer to home through studies such as Frogwatch.
The project studies the impact of climate change on phenology, or seasonal behaviour. Most frogs only call during the mating season, which is triggered by temperature and rainfall. Different species mate at different times and volunteers record the onset of mating calls from winter breeders (whistling tree frog and common eastern froglet), early and mid-spring breeders (spotted grass frog, plains froglet, striped marsh frog and smooth toadlet), and late spring to summer breeders (eastern banjo frog and Peron’s tree frog).
An eastern banjo frog, Limnodynastes dumerili. David Cook/flickr, CC BY-NC
Frogs are known as an “indicator species” for water quality and local ecosystem health. With their permeable, membranous skin, through which respiratory gases and water can pass, and their shell-less eggs laid in water, they are sensitive to even low concentrations of pollutants in water and soils. In this study, frogs give a different kind of warning – as they begin calling earlier in the season, they reveal and give voice to the warming climate we now all inhabit.
The project is fortunate enough to be able to build upon weekly counts of calling frogs by ecologist Will Osborne during the 1980s and 1990s in the Canberra region. Effects of climate change can be incremental. They can also be non-linear, as scientist Pep Canadell explained to me in a recent interview. “Climate change expresses itself through extremes. It’s not a linear relationship of impacts,” he said.
This mixture of incremental change and unpredictable “expressions” can be difficult to record in the short term. With this in mind, the Frogwatch project builds on Osborne’s historical data along with the Frog Census data to chart changing trends. A preliminary comparison reveals that the breeding season of some local frog species might be commencing up to six weeks earlier than 40 years ago.
A sonic world
Headlights sweep into the car park and Anke Maria arrives with a visiting German student who is also researching frogs. Anke Maria is a whirlwind of talk and activity, honing in on my daughter as we zip our down jackets, pull on beanies and gloves, switch on torches and head up a gravel fire trail toward the first dam, known as FMC200. Only metres later we stop at the base of a narrow drainage gully. It’s been a dry winter, but with a patch of recent rainfall a miniature sump-like drainage area at the base of the gully is alive with frog calls.
“That’s Crinia signifera,” Anke Maria explains, making what seems a perfect imitation of its repetitive call. “How would you describe it?” she asks. My daughter turns to me. The call is repetitive, creaking. We struggle to think of descriptions. It’s like trying to put a flavour into words.
“Who do you think is calling? The male or female?” Anke Maria asks. My daughter pauses, pondering. “The female,” she hazards a guess. “Good try,” says Anke Maria, “but only the male frog calls. Except when the female makes a warning call.” She imitates this staccato warning sound. “And why do you think the males are calling?” Again my daughter pauses to consider.
We continue walking up the gravel slope amid shadowy shapes of eucalypt trees, a tangle of gorse and acacia undergrowth, a row of looming metal electricity pylons strung along the lower contour lines of Mt Majura.
“They could be hungry or they found food,” my daughter replies.
“Good thinking, but they’re calling to attract a girlfriend. And do you know, scientists think that each frog species can only hear the calls of their own species. It’s like tuning into a radio station. There are many different stations, but we can only tune into one at a time. A female whistling tree frog can only hear a male whistling tree frog, a female corroboree frog can only hear a male corroboree frog.”
They recognise the frequency and intensity or pitch of the call, she explains, and also the pattern of the call or its pulse structure. “This helps the female find a mate from their own species and not get confused by other frogs.”
We ponder this sonic world where one species can be deaf to another, turn left down a narrow walking track, torchlight bobbing along with our footsteps, illuminating tussocks of grass, fallen branches, shrubs, stones, until we reach the dam. “This is for you,” Anke Maria passes a thermometer. “You do it,” she tells my daughter. First we record the ambient temperature then my daughter squats at the edge of the water, waving the thermometer gently through the shallows. We note the weather: light cloud cover, low breeze. We estimate the dam’s surface area and depth. Then our small group falls silent as Anke Maria switches on her phone audio-recorder.
The dam, FMC200 on Mt Majura. Saskia Beudel.
For three minutes we hold still and listen. There’s the low hum of the city below, an ambulance siren swells and recedes, distant traffic, the shuffle of our down jackets as we try not to move, someone sniffs in the chill winter air – and the frogs. You can hear them interspersed across space, some close, some farther away, among vegetation rather than water. Because of Anke Maria’s explanation, I understand now these are not call-and-response sounds. They are invitations, serenades, statements of presence, lures. Sometimes the calls come in a cluster, other times at staggered unpredictable intervals. There are at least two species here, I guess. In the distance, a mopoke calls.
When Anke Maria switches off her phone, we relax into movement again. As we walk towards FMC210, our second dam, she tells us we’ve just heard a whistling tree frog (Litoria verreauxii). “How would you describe his call?” Anke Maria asks.
My daughter decides on a stick dragged across a rough, hollow surface. Anke Maria makes the call. Her imitations are pitch perfect, an art form. She will be the one who checks the recordings that non-specialist volunteers send in weekly, uploaded to the Frogwatch website. We will make our guesses at species we’ve heard, but she will verify with her trained ear, a labour-intensive task.
In our information pack is a CD of local frog species. When we get home we lie on the carpet and listen, the house filled with frog noise.
A new frog
A week later, on our first trip into the dark alone, the evening is silvered and rigid with frost, as if everything is held together in some different, more metallic way. It’s three below zero and falling. Our breath steams, our boots crunch, the bush is still. I sense something in a dead tree ahead before I see it, a tawny frogmouth, grey, motionless, an outcropping like a broken limb. We pause several steps away and it regards us, head half swivelled, a little tuft of feathers at the base of its beak.
A tawny frogmouth. Saskia Beudel
The following week, on our descent from the dams, once again a frogmouth is in the same tree. A second bird perches a few metres away. They are bound together in some mute, still business. They survey us. We move on with subdued steps. Beyond the birds, the first row of suburban houses begins. We thread our way back to the car with a sense of secrecy and adventure, past back fences, patches of bright window, catching fugitive glimpses of other people’s lives through a half-open door, a crack in a curtain, the blue flicker of TV light.
At the dams we make our recordings. Air temperature, water temperature, ascending over the weeks. On the far side of Mt Majura lies the airport. Often early into a sound recording, a plane takes off, blotting out all other sound. Ecologist Will Osborne tells me he has observed that the aeroplane sound seems to overlap the call parameters (pitch and pulse structure) of the Common Eastern Froglet. Whenever a plane goes over, the froglet stops calling while other species continue – machine and creature competing on the airwaves.
When I upload the recordings, Anke Maria responds and confirms (or not) my guesses at species. You should soon hear Crinia parinsignifera she emails, so keep your ears peeled for a high pitch narky baby cry!
Her enthusiasm is infectious, her aural sketches vivid, memorable. When we hear the new frog, I know exactly what it is. Everyone on the team, each with sites to attend scattered across Canberra, has been waiting for this particular call.
It might show that an early spring breeder is shifting its season into winter. This minor-sounding alteration has a cascade of flow-on effects. Frogs stagger breeding seasons, giving each species its portion of acoustic space to call, breed, then when eggs hatch into tadpoles to feed (a mode of “time sharing” water and its resources). If seasons shift, merge and overlap, competition for resources intensifies, and survival can be jeopardised.
But this year it’s a cold, dry winter. This telling species, Crinia parinsignifera, is calling two weeks later than last year (when it called early). Meanwhile northern Australia is experiencing its warmest July on record. Non-linear. As the monitoring season progresses, dam levels drop. By the end of October, waters have fallen almost silent.
Measuring the drop in water levels. Saskia Beudel
Will Osborne sends an email around, explaining that cold nights and low water levels will make it hard to interpret this season’s counts. “Most species feel insecure about going out onto that exposed mud and trying to find a call site or searching for mates! It will be a big rush when the weather warms and we get good rains – the calling sequence could be condensed this year which will be interesting…”
Taking action
Many volunteers join Frogwatch because they want to participate in a hands-on, climate change-related study with real life applications. “They highly value the opportunity to be involved in climate change actions,” Anke Maria says. She captures one of the dilemmas of our times. Many people want to take action but are unsure how. As artist Natalie Jeremijenko observed): “What the climate crisis has revealed to us is a secondary, more insidious and more pervasive crisis, which is the crisis of agency, which is what to do.” Citizen science gives volunteers an opportunity to do something.
Filling out field data sheets. Saskia Beudel
Studies that chart the impacts of climate change here-and-now disrupt the assumption that effects will occur in a distant future or at some remote geographic location (melting ice caps, apocalyptic cities under 20 metres of water). Instead, they start to build a picture of measurable effects experienced at the current level of 1°C warming above pre-industrial levels – let alone at 2°C or above, which is what we’re committing to based on current emissions rates. In the Canberra region alone, studies are being conducted into impacts of global warming on urban lizard species (who reside next to the local DFO) and alpine pygmy possums.
At a broader scale, Pep Canadell has observed major ecological transformation in Australia that occurred with a 1.2°C increase during the last El Niño. He calls the El Niños a “window into the future because they bring all this heat and put the world where it may be in 30 or 20 years’ time.”
In the last big El Niño of 2015-16, this “future now” included the well-known bleaching of the coral reef, and fires in the moist peats of alpine Tasmania. There are no records for the past 8,000 years that there has ever been a fire in this part of the world. In addition to these well publicised events, around 700 km of mangroves lining the Gulf of Carpentaria died in a month; and the Murray Darling River had one of its worst algal blooms caused by an algae that belonged not in this region but to hotter places in Queensland.
“These ecological signs are unprecedented, all in this little window of a warmer world that the El Niño brought for us,” said Canadell during our interview. He went on to list even more signs. “For some reason these things don’t go through the media enough because of … whatever,” he added.
The Frogwatch project enables volunteers to dwell in an everyday way with such dispersed ecological signals, which, connected together with other studies, provide a larger picture of both current and future impacts. Volunteers are privileged to make their small citizen science contribution to understanding and recording these signs better.
Unfortunately, just as I completed this article, the Frogwatch Program discovered that its funding from the ACT Government was not renewed in the 2018–19 budget. Without core funding, the organisation and its annual Frog Census will cease. The enthusiasm of volunteers will help to collect another season’s data for the climate change study but it too is under serious threat unless alternative funding can be sourced.
When our monitoring season finished last year, I asked my daughter whether she wanted to do it again. “Yes,” she replied without hesitation. “What did you like most about it?” I asked. “I don’t know,” she said, “it was just fun.” And so, as Canberra’s heavy frosts set in, we have begun again, treading up towards FMC200, waiting for frog calls to begin.
Saskia Beudel’s full interview with Pep Canadell will be published in December 2018 in the journal Weber.
My office is filled with colorful images of frogs, toads and salamanders from around the world, some of which I have collected over 40 years as an immunologist and microbiologist, studying amphibian immunity and diseases. These jewels of nature are mostly silent working members of many aquatic ecosystems.
The exception to the silence is when male frogs and toads call to entice females to mate. These noisy creatures are often wonderful little ventriloquists. They can be calling barely inches from your nose, and yet blend so completely into the environment that they are unseen. I have seen tropical frogs in Panama and native frogs of Tennessee perform this trick, seemingly mocking my attempts to capture them.
My current research is focused on interactions between amphibians and two novel chytrid pathogens that are linked to global amphibian declines. One, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis ( abbreviated as Bd), has caused mass frog dieoffs around the world. Recently my lab group contributed to a study showing that some species of amphibians in Panama that had declined due to Bd infections are recovering. Although the pathogen has not changed, these species appear to have developed better skin defenses than members of the same species had when Bd first appeared.
This is very good news, but those who love amphibians need to remain vigilant and continue to monitor these recovering populations. A second reason for concern is the discovery of a closely related chytrid, Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans (Bsal), which seems to be more harmful to salamanders and newts.
Amphibian chytrid fungus has been detected in at least 52 countries and 516 species worldwide. USDA Forest Service
Global frog decline
More than a decade ago, an epidemic of a deadly disease called chytridiomycosis swept through amphibian populations in Panama. The infection was caused by a chytrid fungus, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis. Scientists from a number of universities, working with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, reported that chytridiomycosis was moving predictably from west to east from Costa Rica across Panama toward Colombia.
I was part of an international group of scientists, funded by the National Science Foundation, who were trying to understand the disease and whether amphibians had effective immune defenses against the fungus. Two members of my lab group traveled to Panama yearly from 2004 through 2008, and were able to look at skin secretions from multiple frog species before and after the epidemic of chytridiomycosis hit.
Many amphibians have granular glands in their skin that synthesize and sequester antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) and other defensive molecules. When the animal is alarmed or injured, the defensive molecules are released to cleanse and protect the skin.
Through mechanisms that remain a mystery, we observed that these skin defenses seemed to improve after the pathogen entered the amphibian communities. Still, many frog populations in this area suffered severe declines. A global assessment published in 2004 showed that 43 percent of amphibian species were declining and 32 percent of species were threatened.
In Panama, Smithsonian scientists operate the largest amphibian conservation facility of its kind in the world.
Signs of resistance
In 2012-2013, my colleagues ventured to some of the same sites in Panama at which amphibians had disappeared. To our great delight, some of the species were partially recovering, at least enough so that they could be found and sampled again.
We wanted to know whether this was happening because the pathogen had become less virulent, or for some other reason, including the possibility that the frogs were developing more effective responses. To find out, we analyzed multiple measures of Bd‘s virulence, including its ability to infect frogs that had never been exposed to it; its rate of growth in culture; whether it had undergone genetic changes that would show loss of some possible virulence characteristics; and its ability to inhibit frogs’ immune cells.
As our group recently reported, we found that the pathogen had not changed. However, we were able to show that for some species, frog skin secretions we collected from frogs in populations that had persisted were better able to inhibit the fungus in a culture system than those from frogs that had never been exposed to the fungus.
The prospect that some frog species in some places in Panama are recovering in spite of the continuing presence of this virulent pathogen is fantastic news, but it is too soon to celebrate. The recovery process is very slow, and scientists need to continue monitoring the frogs and learn more about their immune defenses. Protecting their habitat, which is threatened by deforestation and water pollution, will also be a key factor for the long-term survival of these unique amphibian species in Panama.
If Bsal fungus spreads to North America, it could wipe out species like this Northern Slimy Salamander (Plethodon glutinosus). Marshal Hedin, CC BY
Salamanders (and frogs) at risk
On a global scale, Bd is not the only threat. A second pathogenic chytrid fungus called Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans (abbreviated as Bsal) was recently identified in Europe, and has decimated some salamander populations in the Netherlands and Belgium. This sister species probably was accidentally imported into Europe from Asia, and seems to be a greater threat to salamanders than to frogs or toads.
Bsal has not yet been detected in North America. I am part of a new consortium of scientists that has formed a Bsal task force to study whether it could become invasive here, and which species might be most adversely affected.
In January 2016 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listed 201 salamander species as potentially injurious to wildlife because of their their potential to introduce Bsal into the United States. This step made it illegal to import or ship any of these species between the continental United States, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico or any possession of the United States.
The Bsal task force is currently developing a strategic plan that lists the most urgent research needs to prevent accidental introduction and monitor vulnerable populations. In October 2017 a group of scientists and conservation organizations urged the U.S. government to suspend all imports of frogs and salamanders to the United States.
In short, it is too early to relax. There also are many other potential stressors of amphibian populations including climate change, decreasing habitats and disease. Those of us who cherish amphibian diversity will continue to worry for some time to come.
South American horned frogs (Ceratophrys) can capture and swallow whole animals up to their own body size, including other frogs, lizards, snakes and rodents. This is possible because they have jaws that can produce an extremely forceful bite.
Just how powerful is the bite was part of our study, published today in Scientific Reports. We found that small horned frogs – with a head width of 45mm – can bite with a force of 30 Newtons (N). That would feel like having three litres of water balanced on the end of your fingernail.
More impressively, the largest horned frogs from Brazil – with a head width of 100mm – are calculated to bite with a force of 500N. That’s like having 51 litres of water balanced on your fingertip.
A bite like this is similar to that of reptiles and mammals with heads of similar size.
Measuring bite force
Bite force was measured using a special device called a force transducer. Unlike most frogs, horned frogs willingly open their mouths and bite objects (or fingers) as a defensive response.
An example bite force trial. Credit to A. Kristopher Lappin.
This makes it easy to place the free ends of the device into the frog’s mouth so that it bites forcefully, and the device measures the amount of applied force. The free ends of the device are covered in leather to protect the animal’s jaws and to provide a naturalistic gripping surface for the teeth.
Our study is also unusual in that the relationship between size and bite force was measured using multiple measurements from the same individuals from different points during their growth rather than just using a sample of different-sized individuals.
An adult female horned frog (C. ornata). A Kristopher Lappin, Author provided
If just out of reach, the horned frog may lift one or both rear legs over its head and wiggle its toes to attract the attention of the potential meal. Once the victim is in range, the frog will rapidly lunge forwards with a wide open mouth.
The extremely adhesive tongue sticks to the prey and retracts, pulling the prey into the mouth, and the huge jaws clamp shut with great force to prevent escape.
This mode of predation contrasts with the majority of the more than 6,800 living species of frog that do not hide to avoid detection by prey, have weak jaws, and rely primarily on their tongue to catch small insects.
Because of their voracious appetite and stout shape dominated by a huge mouth, horned frogs are often referred to as Pacman frogs after the popular arcade game.
This, along with their attractive colour patterns, has made them popular as pets. Wild horned frogs tend to be spotted or striped with various greens and browns – effective camouflage – but captive breeding has led to a variety of colour morphs involving bright reds and yellows, with names such as dragon wing, lipstick, leopard, and two-faced.
Anatomy of a horned frog
Associated with the impressive bite forces of horned frogs and their ambush lifestyle are several important anatomical traits. They have a heavily built skull in which many of the connections between individual skull bones fuse together as the animal grows.
Cranium of a Brazilian Horned Frog (Ceratophrys aurita) based on micro X-ray Computed Tomography. Credit to Marc Jones, Joe Groenke, and the Natural History Museum Los Angeles County.
The horns in horned frogs are small pointed structures above the eyes. Their prominence varies among species, and they may help to camouflage the frogs by looking like the tips of the leaves on the forest floor where they sit in wait for prey.
Horned frogs are not currently considered endangered but some species are considered near threatened. Like many animals they are suffering a loss of natural habitat. They are also often killed by local people because of false beliefs that they are venomous, and collection for the pet trade may also be significant.
A prehistoric frog with a bigger bite
Bite forces of some ancient frogs may have been even more impressive than those of today’s South American horned frogs.
Beelzebufo ampinga is a large heavily built frog from the Late Cretaceous period of Madagascar with a skull at least 150mm wide.
Detailed comparisons with the available skeleton suggest that its closest living relatives might be the South American horned frogs. When the relationship between bite force and size in the South American horned frogs is applied to the skull width of Beelzebufo the value obtained is 2,200N. That’s a massive 224 litres of water balanced on a fingertip – more than three times the weight of an average Australian woman.
A bite of this force is comparable to estimates for mammalian predators such as wolves and female lions, and within the realm of bite forces measured for crocodiles and turtles with similar skull widths.
For context, the bite force of an adult human male averages only about 25% that of a large Beelzebufo. With a bite like that, Beelzebufo would have been capable of easily overcoming small or juvenile dinosaurs that shared its environment.
Saskia Beudel’s full interview with Pep Canadell will be published in December 2018 in the journal 
In short, it is too early to relax. There also are many other potential stressors of amphibian populations including climate change, decreasing habitats and disease. Those of us who cherish amphibian diversity will continue to worry for some time to come.
For context, the bite force of an 
Kevin's Walk on the Wild Side 
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