I travelled out to Bribie Island Tuesday night gone, not to engage in any sus activity suggested by this post title, but to join several other froggers on their three-monthly wallum frog monitoring (as previously posted about). Temperature of both water and air was a comfortable 19 degrees Celsius and light winds kept mosquitoes away. Because you’re probs over wallum sedgefrog photos, I’ve some photos of their identification aspects only.
In disturbed wallum ecosystems, often (but not only) beside urbanisation, there will be an overlap of ‘specialist’ wallum frogs and ‘generalist’ frog species, such as the Wallum sedgefrog (L. olongburensis) and Eastern sedgefrog (Litoria fallax), respectively. The two species are quite similar to each other, requiring a closer look when they co-occur. Among several feature differences between the two are the colours hidden between their legs and groin, as shown below.
These frogs are not in any pain being held like this but I don’t encourage handling them yourself. I work by the ‘look but don’t touch’ policy more often than not.
Alternative ID characteristics include a sharper snout on the wallum sedgefrogs and often longer and slender body. They also have a raised white ‘stripe’ that runs along their flanks (side of body).
On another note, I will be heading back out to the Conondales one year after my last visit (shocking, I know) and I’m looking forward to seeing stream frogs again!