Long-footed FrogRanoidea longipes

 

The Long-footed Frog (Ranoidea longipes) is a large frog of the monsoonal grasslands and grassy desert of the Australian Top End.   Like many frogs of this seasonally arid land, they remain hidden away underground for much of the year, only emerging to breed on wet monsoonal nights.

I recorded and photographed these Long-footed Frogs in a flooded roadside ditch/puddle, just outside of the town of Kununurra, Western Australia after a tremendous afternoon rainstorm.   According to locals, it was the first reasonable rain they had seen in many months and the frogs responded en masse!   I found deafening choruses of at least 13 species of frog that night all within a few miles of town.    The sound as I walked around this puddle looking at frogs was absolutely deafening.   There were hundreds of frogs of many species calling all at once.   It was difficult to hear which species were calling.

Here's a recording of the cacophony of that spot -

The call of the Long-footed Frog is a long nasal of "wraaaaaah".
Each of the calls lasts slightly longer than 1 second and is repeated every again after about a 1 second pause.
In this recording you can hear the long nasal call against the "roh, roh, roh" background calls of the many Australian Giant Frogs (Ranoidea australis) and a few other species.

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© Chris Harrison 2023