After Day and Night Two, we travelled to the township of Kuranda, a small town nestled amongst the rainforest. Whilst the sun was still up, we headed to the local creek and were on the lookout for reptiles. The temperature must have reached at least 40 degrees Celsius that day. The shade was much appreciated, as was the air-conditioning once we returned back to our unit for the night. To bad it too struggled to function with the heat! Ah well, bring on sundown!
Once it became dark enough, we headed back down to the creek we checked out during the day. I was keen to meet some of the local barred frogs resident in the area. We were also looking in particular for the Kuranda Treefrog (Litoria myola), endemic to the area.
Our first find was neither of the above frogs, but instead, Australia’s only wood frog (Papurana daemeli), previously known as (Hylarana daemeli). Like many of the frogs I’d seen this trip, this species was another new one to me.
We then found quite a few Mottled Barred Frogs (Mixophyes coggeri), and a metamorph of which I’m unsure of the species, though likely to be a Mottled Barred Frog. These pictures show the variation in colour and patterning in the species. This species has a wide altitudinal range, from low to mid altitudes and occurs from as far north as the Big Tableland and as far south as the Paluma Range. The species is not threatened.
I also came across this metamorph, still dragging his tail around.
Also present were many Green-eyed Treefrogs (Litoria serrata), some of which got us wondering if they were actually the Kuranda Treefrog (Litoria myola).
Unconvinced, we headed to another creek, where we eventually heard a call and traced it downstream to several Kuranda Treefrogs! These endangered and newly described frogs are smaller than the Green-eyed Treefrogs.
After recording some calls of this species, we headed back onto the road and travelled a little west where earlier in the day we thought looked like good potential frog habitat. On arrival, we again followed the choruses and found several species calling from a wet paddock. This included another species I hadn’t seen before but was on my hit list; the Bumpy Rocketfrog (Litoria inermis), known as far down the coast as Howard/Burrum Heads.
The fourth and final post from the trip is coming! We head further north and higher up in altitude for some of the tiniest frogs I have ever seen in person.