The humming frog (''Neobatrachus pelobatoides'') is a species of frog in the family Limnodynastidae. It is endemic to Australia. Its natural habitats are temperate forests, temperate

shrubland Shrubland, scrubland, scrub, brush, or bush is a plant community characterized by vegetation dominated by shrubs, often also including grasses, herbs, and geophytes. Shrubland may either occur naturally or be the result of human activity. It m ...

, Mediterranean-type shrubby vegetation, intermittent freshwater marshes, rocky areas, arable land, pastureland and open excavations.

Description

The humming frog is a plump frog with protuberant eyes that grows to a length of about . The back is yellowish or greyish-brown in colour, dappled with darker markings and dotted with small warts. Some individuals have a red or a white streak along the spine. The underside is pale. The feet of females have webbing to halfway along the toes while the feet of males are fully webbed. This species gets its common name from the characteristic trill made by males at breeding time.

Distribution and habitat

The humming frog is endemic to the south western part of Western Australia, its range extending from Geraldton to Esperance. It is found in both sandy and clay areas of deserts and agricultural land at altitudes up to and is a burrowing species.

Biology

In the hottest part of the summer the humming frog buries itself deeply, sheds its skin to make a cocoon and aestivates. During this period of

dormancy Dormancy is a period in an organism's life cycle when growth, development, and (in animals) physical activity are temporarily stopped. This minimizes metabolic activity and therefore helps an organism to conserve energy. Dormancy tends to be clo ...

its

metabolic activity Metabolism (, from el, μεταβολή ''metabolē'', "change") is the set of life-sustaining chemical reactions in organisms. The three main functions of metabolism are: the conversion of the energy in food to energy available to run cell ...

diminishes by up to 86% and its oxygen requirement is much reduced. It emerges when the rains arrive in autumn and early winter and then finds its way to under water air pockets pools and other water bodies to breed. Females lay up to a thousand eggs and the tadpoles undergo

metamorphosis Metamorphosis is a biological process by which an animal physically develops including birth or hatching, involving a conspicuous and relatively abrupt change in the animal's body structure through cell growth and differentiation. Some inse ...

into juvenile frogs after about four months of development.

Status

The

IUCN Red List of Threatened Species The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biologi ...

lists the humming frog as being of " Least Concern". The frog has an extensive range, some of which is in protected areas, has few threats and the population seems stable.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q2239374 Neobatrachus Amphibians of Western Australia Taxonomy articles created by Polbot Amphibians described in 1914 Frogs of Australia