General News
16 November, 2024
Barry's Corner
Frog week ends this week and after some years it can rightfully say the search for frogs has never before been so easy.
A while ago somebody had the bright idea to make use of the new technology for mobile phones. Now anybody can be a citizen scientist with a phone only. It has saved people from wearing big heavy water boots and sliding around in risky waterways. Now take a chair or sit on a log and do the recording in style.
It is so much easier to pick up the free ap and go and record frogs. The frog ID records the one or more frogs calling and then can be identified from the voice.
Makes it sound too simple but thousands of frogs have been identified this way. Lots of times the area of where they live has been extended into previously unknown territory. New species have been discovered and some frogs have been found in places where it was considered too barren for them to survive. Once the recording has been made it is sent to the Australian Museum where the project is coordinated by experts. The recordings are interpreted and then identified. It has been one of the most successful citizen involvements for a species.
If you have a wetland or waterway nearby and a range of calls being made this program will help work out which is which. Dams, gutters, roadsides or creeks can be worked over just a walk from your house.
There is a range of dryland frogs in western Victoria that often stay silent most of the time until moisture sets them off and they burrow back to the surface to feed and mate. These are the spadefoot group of frogs and they can dig effectively and quickly. Often after a rain the frogs will emerge at night and will be sitting on a road.
This ID takes in all of Australia so it Can be used while you are travelling interstate where new frogs could be found. The maps still has great gaps when nobody has been to make a record of the local species. Some amazing discoveries are just waiting to be made and it would be good to pick up a new frog previously unknown to science or not been seen for a long time.