These frogs were thought close to extinction, but they've reappeared

April 18, 2024 12:10 PM

These dramatically-coloured bright yellow and dark black frogs were thought close to extinction, but they've reappeared in a park blackened during Black Summer. (Black Summer was the massive and far reaching 2019-2020 Australian Bushfires/Forest Fires that were on a previously unprecedented scale, size, and scope.) For the first time in five years, northern corroboree frogs have been detected in Namadgi National Park. Almost 40 of the critically endangered species were spotted across the park by government ecologists.

In early 2020, the Orroral Valley bushfire burnt over 80% of Namadgi National Park, or 86,562 hectares (212 acres). Soon after the bushfire, intense rainfall over the fireground caused significant and widespread flood damage.

I used to regularly go bushwalking in Namadgi National Park between 2003 and 2010. It's a gorgeous national park with wide variety of different habitats, from creeks/small rivers to marshy grasslands to valleys to hills to windswept mountains covered with snow and Snow Gums. (It's one of the very few places in mainland Australia where the park authorities tell you to take serious precautions against hypothermia in winter. It's also one of a very few places that you can see a wallaby grazing clear patches of grass in between patches of snow.)

posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries (1 comment total)

Looks similar to this lil' devil - as "venomous/poisonous animal central" aus should have some poison frogs, becuase then our little nontoxic, almost extinct friend would be doing some Batesian mimicry.


posted by lalochezia at 1:21 PM on April 18