Archey's Frog

It’s been in Time magazine, on BBC and it has appeared on National Geographic many times. But it is famous for all the wrong reasons.

Don’t croak!

Archey’s frog is is one of the world’s rarest frogs– not a title to be envied! It is critically endangered because in the last 10 years there has been an 80 percent population drop in Archey’s frog.

It is thought that major cause of this population drop is because of a major outbreak of a fungus disease, called chytrid fungus.

Frogs use their skin to breathe and take in moisture, but chytrid fungus damages their skin. Scientists are frantically trying to find a cure because chytrid fungus is killing frogs all over the world

Archey's frogs are about the size of a bottle-cap (between 31- 37 mm).

Why are Archey’s frogs so special?

As well as being one of the rarest frogs, it’s one of the world’s smallest frogs and one of the most ancient. It is unlike many of the frogs in the rest of the world. It shares many of the traits that are common in our three other native frog (pepekura) species.
 

• It doesn’t croak, but makes chirps and yelps when it is threatened. It is thought that our frogs use special chemicals to talk to one another, not sounds.
• It has tail wagging muscles, but no tail.
• It has no tadpole stage. Its tadpoles grow inside eggs and hatch as froglets –tiny frogs with a tail . In our frogs that live in forests (not streams) froglets leap on the back of their father and are carried around
• It catches insects with its mouth, not its tongue.
• It has no external eardrum
• It does not swim by kicking like other frogs, it uses dog paddle instead.
• It has round (not slit-like) pupils

Like all frogs around the world, frogs are very sensitive to pollution because of their semi-permeable skin. Frogs absorb moisture and breathe through their skin. If water, or air around them is polluted, then they’ll ‘drink’ it up through their skin – they have no other choice!

Frogs are also dying out because of –

• Habitat reduction – Since humans arrived more than three species have been lost. By turning our forests into farmland and cities, we no doubt left our frogs with no place to live.
• Predators – Rats and mosquito fish prey on Archey’s frogs.
• Diseases – The chytrid fungus damages the frog’s skin which it uses to absorb moisture and breathe. Once it developed the fungus, it will die very quickly afterwards.
• Climate Change – We don’t know how climate change will affect our frogs but it is thought the change in temperature may affect their breeding and because they like cool forests they might also lose habitat