Critically Endangered
Baw Baw frog
Philoria frosti
The Baw Baw frog is a critically endangered species of Australian frog as categorised on the IUCN Red List and listed under the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act (1988), endemic to Baw Baw National Park.
Appearance
Adults are dark brown and often have brown to dark brown, yellow flecked bellies. At hatching, the tadpoles are creamy white and unpigmented, acquiring some colouration and eye pigmentation as they mature. Metamorphlings have different colouration to the adults.
Adult length is between 42 and 55 millimetres (1.7 and 2.2 in).
Range and habitat
The Baw Baw frog is a critically endangered species of Australian frog as categorised on the IUCN Red List and listed under the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act (1988), endemic to Baw Baw National Park.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Breeding
In order to save the frog from extinction, a self-sustaining captive breeding program was commenced, with Zoos Victoria taking the lead. Zoos Victoria has undertaken a breeding program to ensure survival of the species that commenced in 2010, and in October 2018 successfully collected the first eggs laid in captivity.
In crisis
It has suffered a decline in population, mostly due to infection caused by chytrid fungus. Population estimates have reduced from 15,000 to 10,000 breeding males in 1983 to around 750, or according to Frogs Victoria less than 250 individuals. This disease can has been related to the diminish of many amphibian populations throughout the world.
Chytrid fungus, collection, and wet-forest loss are the usual pressures on frogs with a high threat category.
Baw Baw frog is Critically Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Baw Baw frog, Wikidata item Q2277135. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
