AUSTRALIAN FROGS

Turtle Frog, photographed in Western Australia, October 2018

When I bought a camera a few years ago I soon found myself photographing birds. It wasn't long before I bought a field-guide and started identifying the birds I had photographed. Before long I found I was searching out species I hadn't seen before, and then found myself travelling to more places to find more species. Its was a slippery slope but yes I became a twitcher. 

As my list of birds grew I did a few trips where I found no new ones at all. Slowly I began to list mammals, and then finally reptiles and frogs. Once I found the Australian Tetrapod Facebook page it became official: I was a tetrapod twitcher! 

Rockhole Frog, Kakadu, October 2018

At first I thought frogs and reptiles would just be an amusing sideline while chasing birds. So I blogged the results all together on one blog:  9001herpetology. However as I pass photographing 50 frogs and look for my next 50 I decided that the frogs needed to be given their own blog, hence the creation of 9001FROGS.blogspot.com. It will contain images of Australian frogs which I photograph and can identify. 

There are over 230 frog species in Australia. They are divided into five native frog species: Hylidae, Limnodynastidae, Michrohylidae, Myobatrachidae and Ranidae. Added to this is the deliberately introduced Bufonidae family, represented by the destructive cane toad. At times other frogs appear, having stowed away on ships or possibly planes, and nine of these species have been recorded in Australia, though efforts have been taken to prevent them becoming established.

Frogs have a permeable skin which loses moisture quickly and so they rely on moisture and ground cover. While many prefer a wet environment, and indeed areas in Australia with high rainfall have the highest density of frog species, there are also frogs which have adapted to the drier climates. These frogs burrow below the earth and only surface when there have been heavy rains. So frogs are found across most of the Australian continent.