Smiling green gargoyle

This guy, who is about as big as my fist, is tonight on my roof like a gargoyle guarding The Ponderosa.

The Green tree frog is his common name, but the Latins call him Litoria caerulea. It is "native to Australia and southern New Guinea. It can be found both in the northern and eastern parts of Australia ... More specifically from the coast to the drier interior of north western Austrailia, Northern Territory, Queensland, SA, and NSW" (source).

Frogs are in dire straits all around the world, so I feel very protective of this bloke. However, I don't like his chances, because of dogs as much as any of the other myriad things, such as pollution, that threaten to eradicate these beautiful and once familiar critters. (Perhaps some other Sandysiders have noticed that the family of Eastern bearded dragons that last year lived in the scrub at the south end seem to have gone missing this year. Unleashed dogs would have to be in the list of suspects.)

Here's some recent news about frogs:

"Frogs are facing an extinction crisis, with one in three of the world's species heading for oblivion.

"As the environmental bellwether for the damage caused by human activity, it was never easy being a frog.

"But decades of pollution, habitat loss, climate change and exposure to the deadly fungus chytrid have decimated the global amphibian population.

"The World Conservation Union (IUCN) yesterday described it as 'one of the worst extinction crises of our time' and announced a global action plan to halt the decline."
The Australian, September 22, 2005

The Action Plan for Australian Frogs
Google search frog+decline

Tagged: frog, frogs, australia, extinction, frog+decline, environment