One small voice in the chorus

Litoria tornieri (?) calling
Originally uploaded by wandering lizard.

A couple of nights ago Seb and I made another trip out the Arnhem highway to collect frogs. It has been raining in the area for the last few days (a bit each day – not continuously) so the frogs are happy. We stopped at Ben Phillips’ place at Middle Point for a bit of BBQ dinner, and then headed out. It was a good spot for Cyclorana australis. We also stopped by a scrape area that we’d been to a couple of weeks ago. That was a froggy orgy. Amazing sound coming from there – truly deafening. There were at least 8 species of frogs (Litoria tornieri, L. pallida, L. rothii, L. bicolor, L. rubella, Limnodynastes ornatus, Limn. convexiusculus, Uperoleia inundata) breeding there when we looked, and all calling like crazy. They were in such a breeding frenzy that they didn’t pay attention to us walking around looking at them (and in some cases, putting them in the bag). On the way home, we had a bag of L. pallida, that made lots of noise all the way home. There was one pair in amplexus, and I managed to get them to lay eggs in a box. One little female produced about 300-400 eggs (rough estimate), and about half of those have managed to make it out of the eggs and start swimming around. We'll see if I can get the eggs all the way through to metamorph stage.

The litte male in this photo was calling away, trying desperately to be heard among the cacophany. I can't remember if it really is a L. tornieri, or if it is a L. pallida. They are a bit hard to tell apart without hearing the calls or looking at the outside of the shin (hidden in this photo). I think it is L. tornieri, though.