Threatened Species: Amazing Baby Corroboree Frogs

[Asher Kelman]

I'm impressed with the conservation work of the Australian Zoo near Sydney. A large number of species are threatened or severly endanged to survive in the next 10-50 years.

Some species are exinnct in their normal habitat. Others have little genetic diversity such that cooperating Zoos over the world swop animals to prevent such in breeding that the whole population is threatend by some new single environmental or infectious agent attack.

I was impressed by the wonderful pictures of Getty photographers reporting on the work in Australia in maintaining small communities of threatened frog species. Taronga Zoo is on Bradley's Head Road, Mosman, Sydney. This sounds pretty dry, however the pictures are amazing! Wow!

© 2007 Photo by Ian Waldie/Getty Images for editoral comment, no license is hereby given for any other use.

"Baby Corroboree Frogs walk across the gloved palm of reptile keeper Stuart Kozlowski at Taronga Zoo in Sydney, Australia. Around 130 of the endangered frogs are housed in a purpose built quarantine facility at the zoo to keep a safe population for genetic diversity." Source is the BBC News here

More information on conservation in this zoo here .

Conservation makes more sense when we see examples like this that are full of wonder. Nevertheless, we still need to face up to the fact that amphibians are globally threatened. They are literally dying out all over the world!

Originally, it was though to be just another consequence of global warming. Then it was found that a lot of amphibians are being devastated by a particular fungus.

Now, however, it appears that the amphibians are actually losing their habitat as the leaves that fall are now less or cleared and so they are squeezed out of existance.

Asher

 

[Asher Kelman]

Anyone have ideas on the coloring of the frogs? Looks like a road hazard warning frog!

Asher

 

[Asher Kelman]

<1000 frogs like this left in the world! An example of a threatened species.

This frog is no more important than any other creature but is in itself interesting as it illustrates the accumulation of limitations on its future success by a number of changes which we can perhaps address.

My eye was attracted to the 3mm frogs! They say that each frog has distinct markings. The patterns are certainly remarkable, like a map of a maze. The similarity is ironic! This creature's life path matches the definition of the wordMaze an area of interconnected weaving paths that it is difficult to find a way through, source is the Encarta® World English Dictionary.

Look at this unusual pattern! How can this be beneficial to the frog, I don't know and Darwin is not around to ask!

Pseudophryne corroboree Copyright © Hal Cogger for editorial use only. No license for other use is implied.

I found this following information which I quote as it's so well written and informative. Source

Pseudophryne corroboree

Family: Myobatrachidae

Common name: Southern Corroboree Frog

Description: This frog has bright yellow and black striped markings on the top and sides of its body and legs. The belly is marbled black and white or black and yellow. The skin on the back is slighly granular with low warts. The warts form ridges that run down the length of the body. The skin on the belly is smooth. The toes are not webbed.

Size: 30 mm

Habitat: This frog lives in the Australian Alps. It is found in marshlands and sclerophyll forests under logs and vegetation. It likes to breed in the sphagnum bogs.

Call: A short, grating "ark" repeated at regular intervals.

Breeding: This frog has a short breeding season because it lives in such cold environments. In the summer months males call from concealed sites in sphagnum bogs and mating occurs in depressions in the sphagnum moss. Females lay their eggs in nests that are hollowed out near the roots of sphagnum clumps. The embryos develop inside the eggs and the tadpoles hatch out when the winter rains or the melting snow (in spring) flood the nest.

Eggs: Are 3.5 mm in diameter and laid in clutches of 10-30.

Tadpoles: Are small in size and black to brown in colour. As the tadpoles approach metamorphosis their gold and black colour patterns become evident.

Similar species: This species can only be confused with Pseudophryne pengilleyi from which it was recently split. It can be distinguished from this species by its gold colouration (as opposed to lime-yellow of P. pengilleyi) and its distribution.

Conservation Information

Suspected threatening processes

Direct human impact/urbanisation/tourism
Inappropriate catchment management, including degraded water quality
Exotic predators (e.g. trout, Gambusia)
Disease/pathogens (e.g. chytrid fungus, viruses)
Global warming and other climate changes
Habitat modification (e.g. vegetation clearing, invasive weeds)

Population size: An estimate of the total number of adults present in the species entire range is 0-1000 individuals. Some factors affecting population size and distribution are known, but 1 or more major factors are unknown.

 

[James Newman]

Very interesting and unnerving at the same time. I don't know much about this subject but it seems that with only 1000 left, their days may be numbered. Let's hope the good people in Sydney can do a bangup job and help these little guy's numbers grow and survive a while longer. The coloring and patterns are brilliant. I'm guessing that they are that way to keep certain predators from eating them? Don't certain bright colors or patterns or both mean "poison" to other animals that might otherwise try to eat them? The pictures are great. Thank you for sharing them. It's just another in a long list of things I would never have learned otherwise.
James Newman

 

[Asher Kelman]

© Jean-Paul Ferrero / Auscape International Corroboree Frog on Moss

© Jean-Paul Ferrero / Auscape International Corroboree Frog Crawling on Moss

© Andrew Henley, Auscape International Corrobree Frog Breeding Habitat

Sources are here and here .

Seeing the little 25-50mm (1"!!!) creatures in real habitat situations brings reality to the enormous problem all wild life is facing in the next 10-20 years for amphibians and birds and then the next 50 years for everything else.

Asher