Dr Geoff Hughes, UNE Discovery

Australia has over 240 species of frog, with 90 species found in NSW alone. While everyone knows what a frog is, and of course every Australian knows what a cane toad is, it’s not all that common for people to be able to tell different species of frogs apart.

In 2017, the Australian Museum launched an ambitious project to try to change all that. The frogID app is a project led by Dr Jodie Rowley at the Museum, and combines citizen science with education and conservation. Have you found a frog and you want to know what species it is? Or maybe you heard some frogs calling and you want to know what they are? The app can help you. Just record 30 seconds of audio, and frog experts will listen to the recording and let you know what you heard.

Caption: Eastern pobblebonk (Limnodynastes dumerilii), I. Sutton (2011), Wiki Commons

The aim of this app is threefold: help people to learn more about the frogs that live near them, help the Australian Museum to monitor frog populations across Australia and possibly find new locations for some species, and to get citizens more involved in science and conservation. Since the app’s inception, more than half a million recordings have been submitted.

If this sounds like something you might be interested in, consider downloading the app to your smart phone. It comes free of charge, and is available for iOS and Android. Search for frogID on the Australian Museum’s website to learn more.

Get out there and see what lives in New England! Go make friends with a pobblebonk!