In Search of Lost Treasure: Is Australia's Remarkable Gastric-brooding Frog Extinct?

Southern Gastric-brooding Frog

Every now and then, I can't resist. I did it again this week. I searched rainforest streams in the Conondale Range, in the Sunshine Coast hinterland, for one of Australia's truly extraordinary critters - the Southern Gastric-brooding Frog, Rheobatrachus silus. I failed to find any. However, a nagging question lingers in the minds of many. While the frog is generally believed to be extinct, may it still be out there somewhere? A succession of wet summers in recent years - following a prolonged dry period since the disappearance of Rheobatrachus in the late-1970s - fuels hopes that the Tasmanian Tiger of the herpetological world may yet live.

After all, what are the odds of this frog, with its unique breeding biology - the female raises its young within the stomach - being known to humankind in the wild for a miserly seven years?

Southern Gastric-brooding Frog

The frog was discovered by David Liem in Kondalilla National Park in the Blackall Range in 1972. Its breeding behaviour was first recorded in 1974, not by Adelaide herpetologist Michael Tyler, as is widely reported, but by a group of young people - Chris Corben, Debbie Raven, Anita Smyth and myself - who shared a house in the Brisbane suburb of Red Hill. Chris first spotted a strange bulging in the stomach wall of a female we had captive in an aquarium. I recall the moment vividly when Debbie shouted that the frog was spewing baby frogs from its mouth. Chris Corben and Glen Ingram quickly sorted out what was going on; Tyler was invited to join the party later. This breeding behaviour was so bizarre - normally gastric stomach juices would destroy eggs, tadpoles or baby frogs - that the journal Nature thought the finding was a hoax. See here for a more detailed account.

The frog was last seen in the wild in Booloumba Creek in the Conondale Range in 1979 (captive animals survived a few more years). The Southern Gastric-brooding Frog was known only from the adjoining Blackall and Conondale ranges. A close relative, the Northern Gastric-brooding Frog, was found at Eungella, in the Mackay hinterland, in the early-1980s but it has similarly disappeared. These frogs vanished along with other amphibian species in Australia and elsewhere, presumably due to atmospheric or environmental changes of some kind facilitating the spread of the deadly chytrid fungal disease.

The Southern Gastric-brooding Frog lived in higher altitude (around 450 metres) rainforest streams, but I found one in 1976 in a tributary of Booloumba Creek near the present day camping grounds at an elevation much lower than normal. The site is pictured above, and I returned there this week. The frog extinctions occurred essentially  at high altitudes so I harbour hopes that lower altitude sites such as this were spared the worst of the chytrid plague. I donned reef shoes and plastic pants for my three-hour search, upturning numerous rocks in suitable-looking pools. There were plenty of aquatic spiders, crayfish and other critters, but no frogs.

Undeterred, I moved on to one of the frog's best-known high altitude sites - a sector of  Booloumba Creek in Conondale National Park formerly known as Beauty Spot 100. This is the place (photographed yesterday in the image above) where Glen Ingram undertook a scientific study of Rheobatrachus before it disappeared. It is one of several sites where a certain Queensland Government scientist (he knows who he is) collected a large number of specimens - far more than was justified. This is also the spot, by the way, where I rediscovered the plumiferus race of the Marbled Frogmouth (see here). It almost beggars belief that notwithstanding the obvious environmental significance of this site, it was logged intensively by the Bjelke-Petersen Government in the early-1980s.

The frogs had been quite numerous here and could be readily found under rocks. I searched many of the pools where they occurred this week but again there was no sign of frogs. This remains a hauntingly beautiful spot, however: I never fail to be in awe of it.

 
The likely loss of Rheobatrachus was hopefully not totally in vain. The frog became the powerful figurehead for a vigorous campaign to save the Conondale Range from logging, mining and clear-felling for hoop pine plantations. In the image above, I was giving a media conference in 1977 about the frog and the need to save the Conondales; a Southern Gastric-brooding Frog is in the aquarium on the desk. The campaign to save the area was boosted significantly by the frog's disappearance amid concerns that it may have been related to development pressures.

Ultimately, the efforts of many dedicated people over a couple of decades prevailed. The core forest areas of the Conondale Range are now protected in the 35,500-hectare Conondale National Park. Mining, logging and clear-felling native forest was stopped. Yet a new threat has emerged with the pending review by the Campbell Newman-led Liberal National Party Government of national park declarations by former Labor governments (see here). Most of the Conondale National Park (the sign in the image above, near Charlie Moreland Park, is quite new) was added by the Labor administrations of Wayne Goss and Peter Beattie.

Meanwhile, I continue to quietly wonder. Are they still out there?

Lockyer Valley: Black Falcon, Plum-headed Finch, Freckled Duck, Brown Songlark, Stubble Quail

Pink-eared Duck

Good birds encountered during another foray to the Lockyer Valley (other than the Pectoral Sandpiper reported earlier) included Black Falcon, Plum-headed Finch, Freckled Duck, Hoary-headed Grebe, Australasian Shoveler, Brown Songlark, Horsfield's Bushlark, Spotted Harrier and Stubble Quail. I kicked off the visit by stopping at the farm dam at Cove Road, Stanmore, but nothing much of interest here, or at the dams in Winya Road, Kilcoy. Heading through Esk, I stopped at a couple of dams straddling both sides of Green Swamp Road, a few kilometres north of Lake Clarendon, which have been quite good in the past. Pink-eared Duck (100+) and Australasian Shoveler (30+) were on these dams along with Hoary-headed Grebe (10, outnumbering Australasian) and Red-necked Avocet (80+).

Australasian Shoveler

Black Falcon

A Black Falcon was at Lake Clarendon, close to the spot where I found them nesting in August (see here); this bird appears to be an old adult. On the lake itself, quite a few Australasian Shovelers were seen but the large numbers of Great Crested Grebe that had been here on past visits were gone, with just a handful of birds remaining. A few Glossy Ibis were by the lake; this species was again encountered commonly throughout the valley.

Black Falcon

Glossy Ibis

At Jahnke's Lagoon, 6 or 7 Hoary-headed Grebes and 4  Freckled Ducks were present, as well as big numbers of Pink-eared Ducks. About 20 Sharp-tailed Sandpipers and 5 Marsh Sandpipers were also here.

Hoary-headed Grebe

Freckled Duck

Moving on to Lake Galletly, 10 more Freckled Ducks were encountered along with large numbers of Pink-eared Ducks, but there was no sign of Blue-billed Duck. The huge Cattle Egret colony here was in full swing with well-developed chicks all over the place.

Cattle Egret

Mistletoebird

I visited the woodland at Adare near Gatton. Birds here included White-bellied Cuckoo-Shrike, Jacky Winter and Fuscous Honeyeater. A Mistletoebird took a liking to its image in my car window.
I spent the night in Lockyer National Park just north of Gatton but there was little of interest here.

Plum-headed Finch

Early in the morning I found a group of 8 Plum-headed Finches just outside Helidon on Back Flagstone Creek Road. Two more Plum-headed Finches were seen 6km west of Helidon along the road. Another 20 were seen later on Cross Road, where I found them last April (see here).

Plum-headed Finch

Swamp Wallaby

A Swamp Wallaby with joey appeared along Back Flagstone Creek Road. A Spotted Harrier was also seen along here. I visited Peach's Lagoon on Ropeley Road, where 7 Freckled Ducks and a few Australasian Shovelers were seen. Then on to the Cross Road Lagoon, where the Pectoral Sandpiper referred to in yesterday's post was found. I visited Karrasch's Dam at Placid Hills where the water is fast drying out; a goodly number of Sharp-tailed Sandpipers (60+) were here.

Brown Songlark male

Seven-Mile Lagoon was dry but good birds were here nonetheless. I saw 20+ Brown Songlarks and others were calling; I've not seen so many of this species in south-east Queensland previously. Quite a few Horsfield's Bushlarks and Stubble Quail were also present in the dried out lake bed. Several more Hoary-headed Grebes were on the farm dam along Haslingden Road. It is interesting that the predominantly inland species that turned up in late-2012 - among them Pink-eared Duck, Australasian Shoveler, Freckled Duck, Glossy Ibis, Red-kneed Dotterel, Red-necked Avocet, Hoary-headed Grebe, Black Kite - are still about in good numbers.

Brown Songlark female

Rufous Songlark

Near Toogoolawah on the way home, I had Rufous Songlark and Brown Songlark calling from fence posts within 50 metres of each other.

Common Bronzewing

Common Bronzewing was again in the garden of our old holiday home near Coominya.

Pectoral Sandpiper Near Gatton

Pectoral Sandpiper

 This morning I checked out the so-called Cross Road Lagoon at Lower Tenthill, a few kilometres south-west of Gatton. The lagoon is on your left heading from Gatton towards Lower Tenthill. I walked in to the edge from the road.

Pectoral Sandpiper

I had hoped to see an Oriental Plover found there recently. No luck there but a Pectoral Sandpiper showed very well indeed.

Pectoral Sandpiper

I was first alerted to the bird by its call as it was flying. It landed not too far away. Pectoral Sandpiper is a rare visitor to south-east Queensland.

Pectoral Sandpiper

Pectoral Sandpiper

Red-necked Avocet

 Quite a few Red-necked Avocets were present on the lake. The only other migratory waders present were one Pacific Golden Plover, one Red-necked Stint and three Sharp-tailed Sandpipers. Plenty of Whiskered Terns were also about. I visited all the Lockyer Valley hotspots as well - more on that soon.

Red-necked Stint

Whiskered Tern

Fostered Channel-billed Cuckoo

Channel-billed Cuckoo

The juvenile Channel-billed Cuckoo being fostered by a hapless Pied Currawong in our Sunshine Coast garden at Ninderry continues to thrive.

Pied Currawong

But there's a curious twist. The Pied Currawong feeding the cuckoo is bald. It appears to have lost the feathers from its head.

Pied Currawong & Channel-billed Cuckoo

There are two currawongs, presumably the breeding pair, but only the bald one appears to do the feeding.

Pied Currawong feeding Channel-billed Cuckoo

At feeding time, the much smaller currawong inserts it head quite a way into the mouth of the cuckoo (deeper than in the image above, but you get the picture). The extent of feather loss appears to approximate the area of currawong head that enters the cuckoo's mouth. So the question: Is the currawong bald because its feathers have been lost in the cuckoo feeding process?

Pied Currawong feeding Channel-billed Cuckoo

Glossy Ibis

Elsewhere, at the Parklakes Wetlands, the Australian Painted Snipe (1), Australian Little Bittern (2),  Baillon's Crake (3) and Spotless Crake (1) were all spotted yesterday morning.  At a small pool nearby, a party of 15 Glossy Ibis was present. At Dunethin Rocks on the way home, a Nankeen Night Heron was roosting in the mangroves.

Nankeen Night-Heron

Eastern Grey Kangaroo

 Saturday was the hottest day on record in much of the Sunshine Coast, with the temperature reaching 42 at Yandina and 39 at Ninderry. The big adult male Eastern Grey Kangaroo made good use of the birdbaths, as did the obviously heat-stressed birds.

Little Wattlebird

Birding Cooloolabin

This morning some of us checked out the lowland rainforest patches at Cooloolabin and around Wappa Dam, where birds including numerous Rose-crowned Fruit-Doves, Wonga Pigeon, Crested Shrike-tit and White-eared Monarch.

Great Crested Grebe

Wonga Pigeon

Australian Painted Snipe at Parklakes

Australian Painted Snipe

Australian Painted Snipe is the latest rarity to turn up at the Parklakes Wetland near Bli Bli. This male bird was seen this morning and late yesterday afternoon at the western end of the second pond. Other local observers have seen up to four Australian Painted Snipe over the past few days, along with as many as seven Latham's Snipe.

Australian Painted Snipe

Australian Little Bittern

The pair of Australian Little Bitterns that have been around for awhile (see following posts) performed well this morning. The male and female were feeding together at one point. Both birds flew frequently from one spot to another, although they are seen most frequently in reeds along the northern edge of the second pond. Also seen this morning were 5 Baillon's Crakes, 1 Spotless Crake and 1 Little Grassbird (along with Tawny Grassbird and Australian Reed-Warbler).

Plumed Whistling-Duck & Pacific Black Duck

Plumed Whistling-Duck and Pacific Black Duck were reflective, as were these three duck species at a nearby wetland at Pacific Paradise.

Hardhead, Grey Teal, Chesnut Teal

Tawny Grassbird

Australasian Pipit

Red-kneed Dotterel

 About 20 Red-kneed Dotterels were gathered around a pool at Maroochy River. Good numbers of this species are still about the coast.

Spotted Harrier

An immature Spotted Harrier was also present at Maroochy River.