The southern corroboree frog (''Pseudophryne corroboree'') is a species of Australian ground frog native to southeastern Australia. The species was described in 1953 by Fulbright research scholar John A. Moore from a specimen collected at Towong Hill Station at

Corryong Corryong is a town in Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia, east of Albury-Wodonga, near the upper reaches of the Murray River and close to the New South Wales border. At the , Corryong had a population of 1,348. The post office opene ...

, Victoria, and sent to the

Australian Museum The Australian Museum, originally known as the Colonial Museum or Sydney Museum. is a heritage-listed museum at 1 William Street, Sydney, William Street, Sydney central business district, Sydney CBD, New South Wales. It is the oldest natural ...

. The curator, Roy Kinghorn, recognised it as a new species and allowed Moore to describe it.

Description

Adult female southern corroboree frogs are long, while males measure ; both bear vivid yellow and black stripes across the head, back, and limbs. The body and head are short and wide, the snout has a slight point, and the fingers and toes lack webbing. The

iris Iris most often refers to: *Iris (anatomy), part of the eye * Iris (color), an ambiguous color term *Iris (mythology), a Greek goddess * ''Iris'' (plant), a genus of flowering plants * Iris (given name), a feminine given name, and a list of peopl ...

is black. The

northern corroboree frog The northern corroboree frog (''Pseudophryne pengilleyi'') is a species of Australian ground frog, native to southeastern Australia. It is differentiated by the southern corrboree frog by having slightly narrower and greener stripes, while also b ...

has narrower and more greenish-yellow striping.

Habitat and conservation

The southern corroboree frog is native to

Kosciuszko National Park The Kosciuszko National Park ( ) is a national park and contains mainland Australia's highest peak, Mount Kosciuszko, for which it is named, and Cabramurra, New South Wales, Cabramurra, the highest town in Australia. Its borders contain a mix o ...

in the northern

Snowy Mountains The Snowy Mountains, known informally as "The Snowies", is an IBRA subregion in southern New South Wales, Australia, and is the tallest mountain range in mainland Australia, being part of the continent's Great Dividing Range, a cordillera syste ...

, where it found at locales between the Maragle Range and Smiggin Holes. Reported as abundant during the 1970s, it declined drastically during the 1980s from

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 ...

. The species are

critically endangered An IUCN Red List critically endangered (CR or sometimes CE) species is one that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as facing an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild. As of December 2023, of t ...

, with the wild population thought to number around 30 individuals. The natural habitat is

sphagnum ''Sphagnum'' is a genus of approximately 380 accepted species of mosses, commonly known as sphagnum moss, also bog moss and quacker moss (although that term is also sometimes used for peat). Accumulations of ''Sphagnum'' can store water, since ...

bog at elevations greater than . Efforts to conserve the species have included establishing captive breeding programs across four institutions: the

Amphibian Research Centre Amphibians are ectothermic, anamniotic, four-limbed vertebrate animals that constitute the class Amphibia. In its broadest sense, it is a paraphyletic group encompassing all tetrapods, but excluding the amniotes (tetrapods with an amniotic ...

in 1997,

Melbourne Zoo Melbourne Zoo is a zoo in Melbourne, Australia. It is located within Royal Park, Melbourne, Royal Park in Parkville, Victoria, Parkville, approximately north of the centre of Melbourne. It is the primary zoo serving Melbourne. As of 2021, the ...

in 2001,

Taronga Zoo Taronga Zoo Sydney is a government-run public zoo located in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, in the Lower North Shore suburb of Mosman, New South Wales, Mosman, on the shores of Port Jackson, Sydney Harbour. It offers great views of Sydney ...

in 2006, and

Healesville Sanctuary Healesville Sanctuary, formally known as the Sir Colin MacKenzie Sanctuary, is a zoo specialising in native Australian animals. It is located at Healesville in rural Victoria, Australia, and has a history of breeding native animals. It is on ...

in 2007. By 2018, there were over 400 southern corroboree frogs in zoos. Five breeding enclosures have established in Kosciuszko National Park. Two-thirds of the frogs in these perished in the 2019–20 Australian bushfires. In 2022, a further 100 frogs were released from captive breeding programs.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q2296149 Pseudophryne Frogs of Australia Amphibians of New South Wales Endemic fauna of Australia Amphibians described in 1953