Spotted Grass Frog

Fascinating facts about the Spotted Grass Frog

• The spotted grass frog reaches 45 mm (1.8 in) in length and is found throughout New South Wales, Victoria, eastern South Australia, most of Queensland and eastern Tasmania.
• Males produce a staccato machine-gun call in northern New South Wales and Queensland, while southern populations use a single “Tok” call in southern Victoria and Tasmania.
• During breeding, the female uses a flap of skin around her thumbs to create a floating foamy nest about the size of a human palm.
• Tadpoles can grow up to 6 cm (2.4 in) and spend at least three months in the tadpole stage.
• The species was unintentionally introduced to Kununurra in Western Australia in the 1970s after several hundred transportable homes were relocated from Adelaide.

At a glance

About the Spotted Grass Frog

The spotted grass frog (Limnodynastes tasmaniensis) is a modest-sized terrestrial amphibian, reaching about 45 mm (1.8 in) in length. Its dorsal canvas shifts from light brown to olive-green, splattered with large, irregular green or brown spots that give the species its name. A thin, pale cream, yellow or bright orange stripe may trace a line from snout to vent, while a raised pale stripe runs from beneath the eye to the arm base. Its limbs echo the back’s spotting, and a clean white belly completes the palette, creating a creature that blends seamlessly into the grasses and leaf litter near still waters. A true opportunist, the spotted grass frog thrives across Australia, from New South Wales and Victoria to eastern South Australia, most of Queensland, and eastern Tasmania, and even naturalised in Western Australia after an accidental 1970s introduction at Kununurra. It colonises permanent or temporary dams, roadside ditches, ponds, flooded grasslands, slow-moving creeks, and urban wetlands, often the first amphibian to settle new water bodies. Males call year-round, their vocalisations ranging from a staccato machine-gun burst in northern populations to a solitary “Tok” in the south, reflecting distinct geographic call races. During amplexus, females swell a thumb-flap skin to froth water, forming a floating foam nest roughly the size of a human palm, within which the comparatively large tadpoles (up to 6 cm) develop over at least three months, a surprisingly prolonged larval stage for such a small frog.

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