Eco Training Australia green travel ecotours Green Tree Frog aslo known as Whites or Dumpty. Native frog to Australia and New Guinea. Bright green in colour found in lush warm wet tropical and rainforest environments.

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Green Tree Frog

Scientific name: Litoria caerula

Also known as the Whites Tree Frog or Dumpty Tree Frog, it is a species of frog native to Australia and New Guinea. This frog was the first Australian frog to be scientifically described, its name, Whites Tree frog was named after John White, the first person to describe it in 1790.

These frogs can reach up to 10 cm in length and commonly live up to 16 years when well kept in captivity.

Description: The colour of these frogs depends on the environment and climatic temperature in which it is found. Bright green frogs are found in the lush, warm, wet tropical and rainforest environments with darker olive brown coloured specimens found in cooler and drier grassland and wooded environments. The ventral surface of the frog is white in colour.

Their backs are smooth and white spots or a stripe is commonly found extending from the corner of the mouth to the base of the arm.

Their eyes are golden with horizontal irises.

Due to these frogs spending most of their time in the substorey of forests, these frogs have large feet and hands with big discs at the end of each finger and toe. This enables them to have superior grip on trees, leaves and toilet bowls. Their fingers are one third webbed and their toes are three quarters webbed, again reflecting that these creatures are generally aboreal, only coming to shallow water to breed. However, some tree frogs have been found living in shallow swampy and floodplain areas.

The Australian tree frog tends to breed during wet season (December to February ) with a female laying her brown eggs in a single layer clear jelly clump on the water surface. The eggs are large, ranging from 1.1 to 1.4 mm in diameter. Female Australian tree frogs lay up to 1000 eggs per year and become sexually mature between 2 and 3 years of age.

The tadpoles change during maturation. Colours vary from a dusky olive brown to a translucent golden brown depending on habitat. The tadpoles are large, eventually reaching up to 40 mm in length at the end of the tadpole cycle.

These frogs tend to eat insects and spiders, catching small prey with their long sticky, projecting tongues or by pouncing on their prey and stuffing it wholly in its mouth using its hands and feet.

Australian Green tree frogs do not have sharp teeth therefore they have to eat their prey whole.

(it is a good thing they don’t have sharp teeth when you find one in the toilet bowl at night)

Green tree frogs are food for snakes, lizards, birds, small crocodiles and dingoes around camp.

These frogs are very commonly seen all year around at our camp but are especially common and active during wet season when these frogs tend to breed. They are often found in our amenities block at camp, arriving early evening and night to feed off the insects attracted by the lights.

The really amazing thing about these beautiful frogs is that they have lungs but also absorb oxygen through their skin. Therefore, for this gaseous exchange to occur, the skin must be kept moist. This moisture in a warm climate can be a risk for disease but these frogs secrete an antibiotic/antiviral substance from their skin that prevents infections, keeping the frog healthy.

Their call Brawk, Brawk, Brawk is probably the most dominant animal noise at night at camp. This call gets amplified when they are sitting in the downpipes from our gutters and the toilet bowls.

Unfortunately, like all Australian frogs, habitat loss and threat from a Chytrid fungus, is reducing the overall frog population.