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Friday 1St December 2006 Follow Signs to Building 22 Jamieson Street Off Holker Street Sydney Olympic Park

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Friday 1St December 2006 Follow Signs to Building 22 Jamieson Street Off Holker Street Sydney Olympic Park NEWSLETTER No. 86 THE FROG AND TADPOLE STUDY GROUP OF NSW INC December 2006 Email [email protected] PO Box 296 Rockdale NSW 2216 . Website www.fats.org.au ABN 34 282 154 794 You are invited to our next FATS meeting at 6.30 pm for a 7.00 pm start Friday 1st December 2006 Follow signs to Building 22 Jamieson Street off Holker Street Sydney Olympic Park CONTENTS Corroboree tadpole Pseudophryne corroboree photo from Marion Anstis’ comprehensive book “Tadpoles of South-eastern Australia” Last meetings speakers Monica Wangmann Kosciuszko National Park Join the Frogmobile helpers 11am to 4pm Sunday 28 January Corroboree field trip report p2 & 3 2007, at Centennial Park’s duck pond. Meet new people. Learn continued on pages 4,5,6 & 10 new skills. Help our frogs, whilst having fun. No previous Hill-Topping by butterflies p4 experience required. Call Lothar on 0419 249 728 See page 9 Alpine Tree Frog p4 & 5 Southern Corroboree frog p5 & 6 MEETING FORMAT for 1st December 2006 How to get to Strickland Forest p7 6.30 pm Adult White Lip, Gracilenta, Fallax and Peron juvenile lost FATS President’s report 2006 p7 frogs need homes and are ready to collect from the Rescue How to get to the FATS meeting p7 Service. Please bring your FATS membership card FATS financial statement p8 and Amphibian Licence. New FATS member Lewis Hahn p8 Where the FrogMobile went p9 7.00 pm Welcome and announcements. FATS meeting (continued) 7.30 pm Main Speakers: Henry Cook will be talking about the Speakers George Mandani, Herpetofauna of the Kimberlys. Grant Webster and Arthur White Lothar Voigt will be speaking about building frog ponds. Committee contacts p10 Naples daily News Sept. 2006 p10 8.15pm 5 Favourite Slides. Tell us about your recent frogging trips or Water and steep sides don’t mix p11 experiences. If you have slides or other images, bring them Field trips & ARP Xmas Party p12 along as well. Door prize and guessing competition, followed by light refreshments and pleasant conversation.1 We had just arrived, when Dave caught a female FATS MEETING OCTOBER 2006 Mountain Grasshopper Acripeza reticulata. Her n late 2005 the Victorian Amphibian Research beautiful vivid red and blue colours were spectacular. ICentre held a fund raiser for research to save the Gerry photographed it. When I came home I tried to Southern Corroboree Frogs Pseudophryne corroboree. identify it but there were no pictures even similar on the The magnificent frog calendar for 2006 were sold for web or in my field guides. Martyn Robinson from the $10 and FATS purchased about 15 in December, Australian Museum said that the photo was raising $150 for the Corroboree Frog project. exceptionally good and that there were very few decent photos of female Mountain Grasshoppers available. I’m hoping that the photos will end up in the ARC web page so that it might be internationally accessible to others. The scientific cabin, on a hill, was of unexpected comfort, with a large dormitory, huge windows overlooking the expansive landscape, separate bathroom, shower, flush toilet and eat in kitchen. On Saturday night we drove to local pond to see endangered Alpine Tree Frogs Litoria verreauxii alpina. The pond area was extremely dry but we were lucky enough to find three metamorphs. Their population size is known to be decreasing. Suspected threatening processes include: . Direct human impact / urbanisation / tourism Prizes included a trip to Corroboree Frog country to see . Inappropriate catchment management, including the endangered frogs at some of the 15 remaining sites. degraded water quality John and Susan Stephens from the Australian Plant Society . Exotic predators (e.g. trout, Gambusia) Latrobe Valley Group and Bill (my husband) and I were . UV-B the winners of the “all expenses paid” field trip. Disease/pathogens (e.g. chytrid fungus, viruses) . Global warming and other climate changes In March 2006 our guides for this fabulous weekend field . Habitat modification (e.g. vegetation clearing, trip were Gerry Marantelli from the Victorian Frog Group invasive weeds) and Amphibian Research Centre (ARC) and Dave Hunter from the NSW Department of Environment and Conservation. They invited us to Kosciuszko National Park. (Dave Hunter had given a presentation to FATS at our August meeting.) The trip by car from Sydney took 6.5 hours. Bill and I arrived at about 5pm on Saturday afternoon. The winding roads and scenery of Kosciuszko National Park were spectacular with diverse flora and fauna such as wild horses, emus, kangaroos, wombats, copperhead snakes and many varieties of insects and birds. Monica Wangmann with female Mountain Grasshopper Alpine Tree Frog metamorph Litoria verreauxii alpina On Sunday, thanks to our guides, we visited a mountain fire tower which has restricted access. Whilst enjoying a sumptuous picnic lunch, surrounded by spectacular views of the Jagungal Park, we experienced a butterfly congregation also known as mountain-topping, an important social event in the life cycle of many butterflies. (See page Corroboree Frog spawn rescued March 2006 John and Susan Stephens, Australian Plant Society on the fire tower, Jagungal Wilderness March 2006. Many of the field trip photos and the sound file of Dave Hunter calling the Corroboree Frogs and their feeble The third site had one male caller whose nest had been trashed responses (it was getting cold) were from John Stephens. probably by a wombat. When the calls were played at our meeting you could even All sites suffer from the invasion of Crinia signifera. Most of hear the flies buzzing. What an excellent digital camera John. this species carry chytrid and are locally known as “Typhoid Thank you so much John and Susan. Mary”. Alpine Tree Frog metamorphs Many thanks to Gerry Marantelli, Dave Hunter, Lydia Fucsko, John and Susan Stephens, David Nelson, Katherine Wangmann and Marion Anstis for their help in making the trip so memorable and/or making the presentation possible at the FATS meeting. Monica Wangmann Underbelly of Southern Corroboree Frog On Sunday afternoon we traveled to three of the 15 known Corroboree Frog sites. At each site our shoes were sprayed to prevent cross infection. At the first site there were no frogs calling. At the second site, one frog was calling in response to Dave’s calls. It may have been from Gerry’s earlier release of tadpoles or frogs two years ago. Dave and Gerry harvested over 100 eggs from one nest. These will be raised into tadpoles and metamorphs and returned to the remaining viable sphagnum moss bog sites. The rescue program to save this species from imminent extinction is an integrated effort by Federal and State government departments and community groups. Members of this collaborative effort include the Federal CSIRO laboratory in Geelong (you may remember Lee Berger from there and her work on Chytrid), the NSW Department of Environment and Conservation and the Amphibian Research Centre. Gerry Marantelli from the ARC has personally funded a great deal of the rescue costs. changes in the appearance of a site can result in males not LOSS AND/OR DEGRADATION OF SITES recognising it as a suitable site……….. USED FOR HILL-TOPPING BY BUTTERFLIES - KEY THREATENING 5. Butterflies which hill-top in NSW and whose populations could PROCESS DECLARATION become threatened if hilltopping sites were lost include: Hesperiidae such as Neohesperilla xanthomera and Hesperilla crypsigramma; (extracts from the web site) Lycaenidae such as Acrodipsas arcana, Acrodipsas brisbanensis, SW Scientific Committee - final determination. Acrodipsas cuprea, Acrodipsas mortoni, Acrodipsas myrmecophila, Ogyris genoveva, Ogyris olane, Ogyris oretes, Deudorix epijarbas NThe Scientific Committee, established by the and Candalides cyprotus; and Theclinae such as Hypochrysops Threatened Species Conservation Act, has made a ignitus and Hypochrysops delica. Final Determination to list the "Loss and/or degradation of sites used for hill-topping by Proposed Gazettal date: 20/04/01 Exhibition period: 20/04/01 – butterflies" as a KEY THREATENING PROCESS 25/05/01 on Schedule 3 of the Act. Listing of Key Threatening Record of hearing and Court's judgement; Ku-ring-gai Council-ats- Processes is provided for by Part 2 of the Act. Lean; Premises 153 - 165 Grosvenor Street Wahroonga; Land and The Scientific Committee has found that: Environment Court Proceedings No. 10457 of 1996. 1. Hill-topping in butterflies is a very complex http://www.nationalparks.nsw.gov.au/npws.nsf/Content/Loss+an behaviour that often facilitates meeting of the sexes d+or+degradation+of+sites+used+for+hill+topping+by+butterfli (Shields, 1967; Atkins, 1975; Common and es+key+threatening+process+declaration EXTRACTS ONLY Waterhouse, 1981; Baughman and Murphy, 1988; LITORIA VERREAUXII ALPINA VERREAUX'S FROG Sands, 1993; New, 1997; Newland, 1997). Hill-tops act as a focus for mating. Many butterfly species, especially escription: The colour patterns of this frog vary a lot in the families Hesperiidae, Papilionidae and Dbetween individuals. The lowland populations can range Lycaenidae appear to be obligatory hill-toppers and from fawn, brown to red-brown on their backs with darker tend to congregate on hill or ridge tops that are usually flecks. A dark broad band starts between the eyes and runs higher than the surrounding countryside. The nature of down the back. This broad band is divided by a pale stripe the sites varies and a site may be as small as a few running down the spine. A dark stripe runs from the nostril to square metres or may cover several hectares, or display the eye. Behind the eye the stripe broadens to enclose the minor or very marked topographic relief. The same sites tympanum (tight membrane covering the entrance to the ear) are used year after year, whilst apparently similar and then breaks into a series of blotches down the side of the nearby sites may not be used.
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