First Frog

Just realised that (shock, horror) I'd made it this far in my blog without a single frog photo! For those of you who aren't aware, frogs have always been one of my passions and a relatively frequent photographic subject. So, enter one of my favourite frogs. Doesn't it look ridiculous?

The pictured frog is Philoria kundagungan, commonly called the Yellow-bellied Mountain Frog. I found this individual at Cunningham's Gap in south-east Queensland and its distribution doesn't take it far afield from there. The group of frogs, 'Mountain frogs' that includes this species, is a bit strange; nowadays they all have small distributions and are associated with mountain tops, but fossils have been found at Riversleigh (in north-west Queensland), suggesting that these frogs had a larger distribution back in the day.

These frogs inhabit really wet leaf-litter habitats in and around mountain creek-beds, from whence you can hear their fart-like call. I was lucky to find this guy as my family and I were just passing through Cunningham's Gap and took a bushwalk during the day with the vague hope of finding one; this male obliged by calling as we were walking past.