Key points

• The vulnerably listed Growling Grass Frog (Litoria raniformis) has been sighted in Wilsons Promontory National Park but the range and status of their population is not well understood.

• Parks Victoria is partnering with the Australian Museum and their FrogID app to work with citizen scientists/members of the public to find Growling Grass frogs and other frog species, which may be new to the Prom.

• This work is part of the ongoing "Prom Sanctuary Project", which will transform Wilsons Promontory National Park into the largest conservation sanctuary in Victoria.

Jeremy Tscharke is an ecological planner based at Wilsons Promontory National Park, which is part of a rich and diverse Aboriginal cultural landscape. Jeremy has extensive experience conducting fieldwork across the Prom and leading the frog and reptile surveys at the Prom for Parks Victoria. “The endangered Growling Grass Frog was once considered extremely common (throughout Victoria) with reports of masses of them on roads at night, proudly belting their deafening choruses. Their skin colour/tone can vary considerably, from a bright emerald green to a dull brown. They are one of the largest frog species in Victoria,” Jeremy says. 

“Their populations have suffered considerably in the past 30 years. This species has been recorded at a few locations in and around the Prom, but is listed as threatened in Victoria due to climate change pressures, including altered water flow, increased feral animal predation (from feral cats and foxes) and an introduced disease called Chytrid fungus, which is responsible for widespread collapse of frog populations in Australia.”

“It’s a reminder to never take our native animals and plants for granted – even those considered ‘common’ are susceptible to the impacts of climate change.”

Chytrid fungus (Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis) is implicated in the mass deaths and extinctions of numerous frog species worldwide and in Australia since the early 1990s. Understanding the origin of this fungus has been difficult, but it is most likely tied to the global trade of frogs throughout the 20th century. This fungus invades the surface layers of a frog’s skin and disrupts their ability to thermoregulate their body. It is thought to be one of the primary reasons for many local extinctions of Growling Grass Frogs across Victoria. But, by utilising your phone this summer, you can help us catalogue their call and location at the Prom, along with the distinct and varied calls of their froggy peers, through the Australian Museum’s simple-to-use and free to download app: FrogID. 

Your citizen science will help contribute to the first comprehensive database of frog populations at the Prom.

Australian Museum's Frog ID app program 

FrogID aims to catalogue a nation-wide database of frog calls recorded by citizen scientists. The app logs a unique time-stamped audio recording, which helps identify the species. Why a recording? Well, a frog’s call is one of the most accurate ways to differentiate it from other species. 

By utilising FrogID, the potential to find new species or populations of frogs in Wilsons Promontory is high, according to Jeremy. “Reptiles and amphibians are yet to be comprehensively surveyed at the Prom, with very few historic survey efforts known or formally recorded. This opens up an exciting opportunity and strong possibility, as part of our community call-out, to find a frog species or population that is new to the Prom.”  

The information provided through the app will help us work out the diversity of frogs, and importantly, where frogs are not being recorded. Frogs can be a bio-indicator of ecosystem health, and declining frog populations across numerous species can also indicate predation by introduced pests, which includes larger predators such as foxes or cats. Knowing more about them may help us better identify and respond to potential threats at the Prom.

How you can help

1. Download the FrogID app on your phone and create a profile. 

2. Visit Wilsons Promontory National Park. Stick to paths and when you hear what you think is a frog call, whip out your phone and record it. The recording needs to at least 20 seconds long.

3. Submit the recording. You don’t even have to know which frog you’re listening to, as verified froggy scientists will gather your data and identify which species of frog you've captured! This information is then accessible to Parks Victoria scientists who can use the data to inform their work. 

The Frogs of Wilsons Prom