Red-crowned Toadlet

Fascinating facts about the Red-crowned Toadlet

• A frog no bigger than a thumb, just 30 mm long, carries a bright red T-shaped badge on its head, making it easy to spot among the dark brown and black foliage of Sydney’s sandstone escarpments.
• Its entire world is squeezed into a thin strip of sandstone woodland from Ourimbah in the north, down to Nowra in the south, and out to the Blue Mountains in the west.
• Males wait beneath leaf litter and rocks, only breaking the silence after a heavy downpour to give an “ark” call that signals a hidden nest site destined to be flooded.
• The red-crowned toadlet’s embryos develop inside the egg; when rain finally swells the temporary pools, the nearly-formed tadpoles burst out ready to finish growing in the brief water window.
• Urban sprawl around Sydney is chipping away at the toadlet’s temporary creek homes, reducing the occurrence of its “ark” calls.

At a glance

More other animals to discover

Browse Feravox