OUR WORK
Australia is a world leader in species extinction and declines, largely due to invasive species.
Our Work | Ending extinction | Photo by Martin Cohen
Extinct: Sharp-snouted day frog
- Common name: Sharp-snouted day frog
- Scientific name: Taudactylus Acutirostris
- Formal national status: Extinct
- Decade of extinction: 1990s
- Expert assessment of extinction causes: Invasive species (Chytrid fungus 99%)
In the rainforests of north Queensland this frog, though small, attracted attention to itself by being active by day, widespread and noisy. Males often called all day from first light into the evening, like a spoon tapping on a glass: ‘tink…tink…tink’. They were so common that as many as 20 might be found along 20 metres of stream.
In the 1980s they began disappearing from the southern parts of their range in the Wet Tropics, in an extinction wave that rolled north for 300 kilometres until it hit the Big Tableland at the very top of the Wet Tropics. Here, out of concern about many disappearances, national park ranger Keith McDonald began in 1992 to monitor the frogs every 4 to 6 weeks. In late 1993 the wave struck, bringing down 3 species he was watching. Along a hundred metre stretch of stream he saw numbers of day frogs plummet from a high of almost 80 to zero in a couple of months.
In a frantic bid to save the species more than a hundred sharp-snouted day frogs and tadpoles were collected for captive breeding at Taronga Zoo and Melbourne Zoo. Despite the best possible care, they succumbed to infections and died – every single one. A colony kept for breeding at James Cook University in Townsville also died out. The species was unsavable. The last wild sighting was in 1997.
This extinction is one of several blamed on chytrid fungus, a pathogen from Asia. The fungus was found on dead and dying frogs collected at Big Tableland and on frogs that died at Melbourne Zoo.
“Sharp-snouted day frogs were especially abundant and would sit on mossy rocks on the edge of the stream during the day. If you walked down a stream you literally had to watch and wait before each step until they hopped off the rock.” – Biologist Martin Cohen
Photo by Martin Cohen
Extinct
Australia has lost about 100 native plants and animals to extinction since colonisation, most of which were mainly due to invasive species. An estimated 27 of those extinctions occurred since the 1960s.
Learn more about some of Australia’s lost animals: