‘Charismatic’ creature heard ‘laughing’ in backyards of Australia. It’s a new species

Aspen Pflughoeft
·2 min read
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Someone in northwestern Australia heard a “laughing” sound coming from the backyard. They recorded the sound and submitted it to a citizen science database.

Scientists listened to this laugh-like recording, along with thousands of others, and discovered the sound came from a “charismatic” new species of creature.

Residents of northern Australia “commonly encountered” a creamy brown tree frog with a “loud cackle resembling a laugh,” amphibian researchers Jodi Rowley, Steve Donnellan and Stephen Richards wrote in a news release from The Australian Museum. This tree frog is widely known as Roth’s tree frog.

But something about this tree frog didn’t quite add up.

The tree frog had an abnormally large geographic range for a frog and, across this range, quite a bit of variation in its laugh-like call, according to the release. As a result, researchers suspected that Roth’s tree frog was actually more than one species.

Researchers decided to investigate. They analyzed frog call recordings — more than 8,000 of them — submitted to the citizen science database FrogID and studied the DNA and physical features of frogs from a variety of locations, according to a study published Oct. 2 in the journal Zootaxa.

The analysis discovered that the “laughing” tree frogs living in northwestern Australia were a distinct species, the study said. The new species was named Litoria ridibunda, or the western laughing tree frog.

A Litoria ridibunda, or western laughing tree frog, perched on a log.
A Litoria ridibunda, or western laughing tree frog, perched on a log.

The western laughing tree frog is considered “large,” usually reaching about 1.9 inches in size, the researchers said. It has a creamy white or light brown body and a pattern of yellow, orange and black spots on the underside of its thighs.

Photos show the western laughing tree frog. It has a slightly bumpy texture and uniform coloring. Its multicolored eyes have a reddish-orange upper section, and its pupils are a pointed oval shape.

A Litoria ridibunda, or western laughing tree frog, perched on a leaf.
A Litoria ridibunda, or western laughing tree frog, perched on a leaf.

Audio recordings captured the western laughing frog’s chirp- or click-like call.

The western laughing tree frog lives in a variety of habitats including swamps, rocky creeks, waterfalls, “seasonally flooded grasslands and near human habitation such as shower blocks,” researchers said. It was commonly recorded calling from backyards, buildings and rural areas.

Male western laughing tree frogs can be heard calling year-round but are heard most often in the summer wet season, which is from October through February in Australia, researchers said.

A Litoria ridibunda, or western laughing tree frog, with darker coloring.
A Litoria ridibunda, or western laughing tree frog, with darker coloring.

“Our study further emphasizes the undiagnosed diversity that remains in Australian frogs, even in relatively large, charismatic, frequently encountered species that often share human dwellings,” the study said.

The new species of tree frog is found along Australia’s northern coast. Its range stretches across the provinces of Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland, the study said.

The research team included S.C. Donnellan, R.A. Catullo, J.J.L. Rowley, P. Doughty, L. Price, H.B. Hines and S.J. Richards.

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