Australian Frogs

Amphibians are vertebrates that start their life breathing through gills like fish, then develop lungs and breathe air.

Australia’s native amphibians are all frogs (even though some are called ‘toads’ or ‘toadlets’ because of bumpy skin; and the cane toad has been introduced from Central America and now poisoning many native animals that eat it). We have NO native toads, NO newts and NO salamanders. Our frogs however are many and varied (as are their calls), and those of the ’southern frog’ family have some unusual ways of raising their young.

Unfortunately, one of the strangest of all, the gastric-brooding frog, which swallowed her eggs after fertilization and reared the tadpoles in her stomach, now appears to be extinct, so the chance for scientists to investigate their method of switching off their digestive enzymes (which it was hoped would lead to useful treatments for patients with stomach ulcers) is gone forever.

The frogs mostly belong to two large families with Gondwanan ancestry – the tree frogs and the ’southern frogs,’ with a few species of Northern Hemisphere ancestry found in the far north