Darling Range Branch
Our guest speaker for the night, Johnny Prefumo, drove all the way up from Bunbury to give a packed Jorgensen Park Pavilion a first-rate talk on frogs for our April DRB meeting. Everyone loved it!
This was far more than a survey of batrachian taxonomy in the south west of WA; it was an introduction to the lives of many frog species, seen through the lens of the frog-spotter’s efforts to track down and record the calls of frogs in many wild places. We were greatly amused to hear about forays in the middle of the night, in pouring rain, with rangers and police officers waiting to apprehend a person acting suspiciously in a wetland, and not so funny—an account of the theft of Johnny’s 4WD vehicle.
Johnny showed dozens of great photos of frogs and played almost as many calls, often challenging us to identify frogs from those calls. For example, the call of the well-known Motorbike Frog (Litoria moorei) is subtly different from the call of the almost identical Spotted Thigh Frog (Litoria cyclorhyncha), and where their ranges overlap in southern areas a knowledge of the calls can be a great help in separating the species.
Johnny brought several live frogs along with him. These were much appreciated by the members who were able to see them “doing their thing” without having to leave their seats as their images were projected live on the big screen via the DRB’s newly acquired IPEVO presenter device. Johnny described how the Moaning Frog (Heleioporus eyrei) would inevitably burrow its way backwards into the damp mulch of its container, and right on cue, we all watched it do exactly that.
The visible external difference between male and female frogs was something I, for one, knew nothing about, but Johnny turned them on their backs and showed us the flecked markings on females contrasting with the smooth look of the males. This became an ongoing theme as he showed photographs of the bellies of more species while encouraging the kids to shout out “boy” or “girl”. I expect a result of this will be a flood of children’s competition entries depicting various aspects of frogs for the May DRB meeting.
Motorbike Frog; Andrew Wallace
Johnny gave us some important advice in the making of frog-friendly gardens, specifically about the need for damp-lands and wetlands with lots of sunshine to encourage algae for feeding tadpoles, rather than shaded deep-water ponds that tend to fill with motorbike frogs and little else. I also learnt that most WA frogs have claws on their feet, don’t need much water as adults, and easily drown in it—very interesting.
Johnny said that where frogs are concerned he is a kid who never grew up. Well he obviously did, but I’m sure his enthusiasm will inspire a lot of the little and big kids who were there to start looking more closely at these wonderful creatures.
Mike Green