Well, it turns out I got another new species for my recording lifelist without ever leaving the house. In June 2025, Purser et al. published a revision of the widespread Desert Treefrog (Litoria rubella), splitting it into three species. I have never been in the range of the new western species (Litoria larisonans), but I have recorded in the range of the other two species, Litoria rubella and L. pyrina. So my previous entry for Litoria rubella actually represents L. pyrina. So I will make a new entry for the newly restricted Litoria rubella.
Technically, the "new" species for me was the one I had recorded first, the Ruddy Treefrog (Litoria pyrina). It occurs on the coast of Queensland, Australia, east of the dividing range. But the subject of this entry, the Desert Treefrog (L. rubella) occurs west of the Great Dividing range across the dry top end of Australia into the Kimberley region of WA.
I think the Desert Treefrog has quite an "ugly" frog call. It is a loud, raucous, rasping "raaahk" sound to my ear.
Here is the call of an individual Litoria rubella from outside of Kununurra, Western Australia. I was actually trying to record the "dooks" of the Ornate Burrowing Frogs (Platyplectrum ornatum), but didn't see the Desert Treefrog hiding in the grass, just to the left of my microphone. He totally "audio bombed" my recording.
And here is a noisy chorus of Desert Treefrogs (L. rubella) from near Kakadu, Northern Territory. The higher "chirp" sounds are Black-shinned Rocket Frog (Litoria tornieri).
So I got a new "old" treefrog species that I had seen many times? That's ok, they all count!
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© Chris Harrison 2025
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