Beck's tree frog (''Litoria becki'') is a species of

frog A frog is any member of a diverse and largely semiaquatic group of short-bodied, tailless amphibian vertebrates composing the order (biology), order Anura (coming from the Ancient Greek , literally 'without tail'). Frog species with rough ski ...

in the subfamily

Pelodryadinae Pelodryadinae, also known as Australian treefrogs (although not all members are arboreal), is a subfamily of frogs found in the region of Australia and New Guinea, and have also been introduced to New Caledonia New Caledonia ( ; ) is a g ...

. It is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also foun ...

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is an island country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and offshore islands in Melanesia, a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean n ...

. Its natural

habitat In ecology, habitat refers to the array of resources, biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species' habitat can be seen as the physical manifestation of its ...

s are tropical moist

montane forest Montane ecosystems are found on the slopes of mountains. The alpine climate in these regions strongly affects the ecosystem because temperatures lapse rate, fall as elevation increases, causing the ecosystem to stratify. This stratification is ...

s, grasslands and

stream A stream is a continuous body of water, body of surface water Current (stream), flowing within the stream bed, bed and bank (geography), banks of a channel (geography), channel. Depending on its location or certain characteristics, a strea ...

s. It was first described by the British biologist and herpetologist

Arthur Loveridge Arthur Loveridge (28 May 1891 – 16 February 1980) was a British people, British biologist and Herpetology, herpetologist who wrote about animals of East Africa, particularly Tanzania, and of New Guinea. He gave Binomial nomenclature, scientific ...

in 1945 and is named in honour of the American ornithologist and explorer Rollo Beck who led the

Whitney South Seas Expedition The Whitney South Sea Expedition (1920 - 1941) to collect bird specimens for the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH), under the initial leadership of Rollo Beck, was instigated by Leonard Cutler Sanford, Dr Leonard C. Sanford and financed by ...

in the 1920s, collecting bird and other specimens from thousands of islands in the South Pacific.

Description

Beck's tree frog is a fairly large tree frog with a snout-to-vent length of between . The head is about as wide as it is long, with small, widely separated nostrils and

tympani Timpani (; ) or kettledrums (also informally called timps) are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum categorised as a hemispherical drum, they consist of a membrane called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionally ...

(eardrums) somewhat smaller than the eyes. Both fingers and toes are long with the toes being webbed while the fingers have disced tips and are unwebbed, the third finger being the longest. The skin is rather coarse, especially on the head and eyelids, but in other parts of the body it is finer. The upper parts of head and body are brown or dark green, and the underparts are streaked with dark colour.

Distribution and habitat

Beck's tree frog is

to the mountainous regions of Papua New Guinea. It was at first only known from the two highest mountains in the country,

Mount Wilhelm Mount Wilhelm () is the highest mountain in Papua New Guinea at . It is part of the Bismarck Range and the peak is the point where three provinces, Chimbu, Jiwaka and Madang, meet. The peak is also known as ''Enduwa Kombuglu'', or ''Kombugl'o ...

in the Bismarck Range and

Mount Giluwe Mount Giluwe is the second highest mountain in Papua New Guinea at (Mount Wilhelm being the highest), and the fifth highest peak on the island of New Guinea. It is located in the Southern Highlands province and is an old shield volcano with vas ...

in the Southern Highlands. Specimens have been found at altitudes of over . In 2007, a previously unknown population was discovered at an altitude of in the

Kaijende Highlands The Kaijende Highlands are a nearly uninhabited expanse of mountains near Porgera in Enga Province, Papua New Guinea. The highlands have been characterized as "some of Papua New Guinea's most pristine and scenic montane habitat". The Kaijende Highl ...

Enga Province Enga is one of the provinces in Papua New Guinea (PNG). Enga is geographically situated in the northern region of Papua New Guinea and was separated from the adjacent Western Highlands at the time of national independence in 1975. The majority ...

. The typical habitat of this frog is mountain grassland including boggy areas with pools. It breeds in rapid mountain streams, the large eggs being stuck onto the underside of stones. The

tadpole A tadpole or polliwog (also spelled pollywog) is the Larva, larval stage in the biological life cycle of an amphibian. Most tadpoles are fully Aquatic animal, aquatic, though some species of amphibians have tadpoles that are terrestrial animal, ...

s are not known.

Status

Very little is known of this frog and its habits. The high-altitude sites at which it has been observed are far from human settlements and subject to little human impact. It might be vulnerable to the amphibian disease

chytridiomycosis Chytridiomycosis ( ) is an infectious disease in amphibians, caused by the chytrid fungi '' Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis'' and '' Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans''. Chytridiomycosis has been linked to dramatic population declines or extinc ...

which affects some montane, torrent-dwelling frog species in Australia. The

IUCN The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. Founded in 1948, IUCN has become the global authority on the status ...

has listed it as being of "least concern".

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q383871 Amphibians of Papua New Guinea Endemic amphibian species of Papua New Guinea Litoria Amphibians described in 1945 Taxonomy articles created by Polbot