Frogs of Australia

Regional guides

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Key guide to Victorian frogs

The Frogs of Victoria project is retained only for the great key guide. Work through a series of questions until, finally, your frog is identified.

Key guide

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Litoria citropa

Blue Mountains Tree Frog

Also: Varigated River Tree Frog

+ 50 kb Blue Mountains Tree Frog (Litoria citropa)

One of the "river" tree frogs, an inhabitant of rocky rivers and streams. A strong jumper and able swimmer despite the lack of webbing on its feet.

Distribution and habitat

Adults are usually found at or near rocky rivers and streams in wet or dry forest and woodlands. Often found sheltering under rocks along streamsides. The eggs are usually spawned in streamside pools and backwaters, and the tadpoles are strong-swimming, river or stream dwellers.

There is a detailed distribution map available for: Victoria.

Calling

Males call from streamside vegetation along rocky rivers or streams. The call is in two parts. A long whirring introductory note followed by several short harsh pulsed notes - "war-r-r-rk cruk-cruk cruk-cruk cruk-cruk cruk".

Life cycle

Distinguishing characteristics

Adult length: 40-60mm.
Approximately 900 pigmented eggs are spawned in jelly clumps in stream backwaters or pools. The tadpoles are brown with transparent fins flecked with brown. Adults are golden to rusty brown with green flashes on the sides.

Visible features

Presented here is the information stored in the frogs.org.au database which is used to identify frogs based on their appearance. It is intended to be used in a key guide for separating species so some of the information (for example, back colours) may be rather non-specific. The system is currently being developed - if you notice errors in the data, please write to Dave Black at the address at the bottom of the page.

Important note: This information details only the appearance of the frog. If an "or" appears in the description, this may mean either that there is some variation within the species or that the feature might be observed differently by different people. For example, if a frog has very small toe pads, it may be listed as having "Toe pads: present or absent".