When I first decided that I was going to the top end of Australia for the austral summer of 2023/2024, I of course looked at my frog books to see which new species I could encounter and record. One of the species I saw listed was an old friend, the Northern Laughing Treefrog (Litoria rothii). I had encountered these frogs about 10 years earlier in many areas in northeastern Queensland.
However, doing a bit of updated research on the Australian Museum's Frog Identification page (and App), I was delighted to learn that the population of Laughing Treefrogs in the Top End was now a new species, the Western Laughing Treefrog (Litoria ridibunda). So I would get another new frog!
Now, for all practical purposes, the Western Laughing Treefrog is pretty much indistinguishable from its eastern cousin and sounds very similar. I found and recorded this species a number of places in Western Australia and the Northern Territory. Pretty much anywhere there was water, this species was present. This was similar to the distribution of its eastern sister species as well.
The call of this species is.....well.....a laughing sound. In this recording from Fogg Dam Conservation area, you hear this species calling with crickets and later the buzzy trill of the Northern Sedge Frog (Litoria bicolor) and at the end, the distant metallic "ponk" of the Marbled Frog (Limnodynastes convexiusculus)
Western Laughing Treefrogs from Fogg Dam
In this second recording from Kakadu National Park, we hear a Laughing Treefrog along with the buzzy trills of the Northern Sedge Frogs (L. bicolor) again.
Western Laughing Treefrogs from Kakadu National Park
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© Chris Harrison 2024
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