Kermit the frog famously said it's not easy being green. He was surely speaking for the entire frog community. Thing is, not all frogs are green.
What he could have said was it's not easy being a frog. Especially when you have to share the planet with humans.
Australia has 246 known species of native frogs, with more than 30 under threat from extinction.
Frogs are kind of like the canaries in the coalmine. "They're really sensitive indicators of environmental health," said Dr Jodi Rowley, FrogID lead scientist.
Frogs have been dying in large numbers this year, but it's not all doom and gloom.
The Australian Museum's FrogID citizen scientist project has identified two new and "very loud" frog species from eastern Australia: the slender bleating tree frog and the screaming tree frog.
The slender frog is found in Queensland, while the screaming frog is found from Taree in NSW to just over the border in Victoria.
We were sent some audio of the screaming frog. It wasn't quite the blood-curdling scream we feared. It sounds a bit like a cat to us. Or maybe a bird. Let's say a cat-bird. The slender frog sounded like a goat. Perhaps that's why it's called the "slender bleating tree frog".
The new frog species were once thought to be one species - the bleating tree frog. Dr Rowley said it was "well known to residents along the east coast of Australia for its extremely loud, piercing, almost painful call".
"These noisy frog bachelors are super loud when they are trying to woo their mates," Dr Rowley said.
The scientists analysed the calls submitted to the FrogID project.
"Our examination revealed that their calls differ slightly in how long, high-pitched and rapid-fire they are," she said.
Professor Steven Donnellan, chief research scientist of evolutionary biology at the South Australian Museum, said genetic work was the first clue that there were, in fact, three species.
"Although similar in appearance and in their piercing calls, the frogs are genetically very different. I'm still amazed that it's taken us so long to discover that the loudest frog in Australia is not one but three species," Professor Donnellan said.
The three species vary in appearance. The slender frog is, of course, slender in appearance and has a white line down its side. The males have a black vocal sac.
The screaming frog isn't so slender, doesn't have the white line and the males have a bright yellow vocal sac. In the breeding season, the entire body of the males can turn lemon yellow.
Professor Michael Mahony, of the University of Newcastle, said the three closely-related species were relatively common and widespread.
"They are also all at least somewhat tolerant of modified environments, being recorded as part of the FrogID project relatively often in backyards and paddocks, as well as more natural habitats," Professor Mahony said.
Dr Rowley said the two new frogs boost the number of native frog species known in Australia to 246, including the recently recognised Gurrumul's toadlet and the Wollumbin pouched frog.
That, we must say, is toadally cool.
Place Names
Peter Newey had another place name to add to places that are pronounced differently to the way they're spelt. Peter said Mungie Bungie - on the old railway line from Moree to Inverell - is pronounced "Mucka Bunyie".
