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| Eastern Dwarf Treefrog, Litoria fallax (Peters). Photographed near Mt. Warning National Park in NSW, Australia. Calling males would sometimes fight by grappling with each other, most calling sites were 0.5 to 1. m above the ground at the edge of a pond. |
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White-lipped Tree Frog, Litoria infrafrenata (Günther, 1867). It is also known as the Giant Australian Treefrog. It inhabits the lowlands of New Guinea; extending westward to the islands of Timor, Halmahera, Seram, and Buru; eastwards to New Ireland, Bismarck Archipelago, and south to the Aru Islands and the Cape York Peninsula, Queensland, Australia. It has also been introduced into Java. This is a huge treefrog, adult reach at least 135 mm in body length, The White Lipped Treefrog tends to be a forest and swamp forest inhabitant. Males call from 3-4 meters above the ground when not breeding, but call from the water during the breeding season. Menzies (1976, Handbook of Common New Guinea Frogs, Wau Ecology Institute) wrote about this species.
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The Australian Treefrogs are currently placed in one genus, Litoria, with 181 species. They occur in Australia, Tasmania and New Guinea and the following island groups: Moluccan Is., Lesser Sunda Is., Timor, Bismarck Archipelago, Solomon Is. And, they have been introduced into New Caledonia, New Hebrides (Vanuatu), Guam, and New Zealand. Michael Tyler (1976, Frogs. Collins Publishing) wrote about the Australian Treefrog radiation.
Of, course this is true for members of this family in the New World also, with some Western Hemisphere species being terrestrial or subterranean. |