Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Barred frogs discovered on the brink

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NBFrog.jpg
Northern Barred frogs (Mixophyes schevilli) from Cooper Creek Wilderness

According to Brendon O’Keefe of the Australian, two new north Queensland frog species have been discovered on or near the mountaintops of the Carbine Tableland. They have been identified as Barred Frogs; Mixophyes carbinensis and coggeri.

Conservation biologist Michael Mahony of the University of Newcastle, expressed concern that the frog(s) faced two associated threats in the form of global warming and also the frog-killing chytrid fungus, which would flourish in increased temperatures.

However, Nomination of Wet Tropical Rainforests of North-east Australia by the Government of Australia for inclusion in the World Heritage List, argued the Australian frog family, Myobatrachidae is believed to have had Gondwanan origins (Duellman & Trueb, 1986; White 1984), with primitive species within these families found in the Wet Tropics bioregion in the genera Mixophyes.

So, have the two identified species distinguished themselves from ancestral stock through recent speciation or have they persevered undetected to science from their Gondwanan origins. Surely the distinction would have implications for their survival prospects through climate variation.

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Comments

  1. rog says

    Neil, in a prior thread somewhere I linked a recent study by Australian ‘geologists’ which concluded that the macro fauna of Australia survived many climate changes and their demise coincided with human activity. If macro or mega fauna survived you would expect that balance of the food chain also survived climate change. Certainly the barred frogs’ continued existence shows that climate change(s) may not be the catastrophe that some predict.

    http://media.uow.edu.au/releases/2006/1222a.html

  2. Neil Hewett says

    Nevertheless Rog,

    You must surely appreciate the paradox: The discipline and specialisation that ultimately led to the identification of a genetically distinguished Barred frog (or two) must be gratifying in a purest sense, but how is it converted into actual entrepreneurial capital; such that current education policy requires?

    Certainly not by lauding its security and abundance. No, Australia releases its resources most generously when it is almost certainly too late.