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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Neobatrachus pictus

Mallee Spadefoot Toad

Also: Painted Burrowing Frog, Painted Frog

+ 49 kb Mallee Spadefoot Toad (Neobatrachus pictus)

A powerful burrower inhabiting arid and semi-arid zones of the Mallee. This frog is common in areas of South Australia but only locally common in Victoria.

Distribution and habitat

Distribution map for Neobatrachus pictus

Adults can be found in a wide range of arid and semi-arid areas including woodland, mallee, shrublands and heathlands, and open and disturbed areas including farmland. Eggs and tadpoles are aquatic, in still water in ponds, dams, flooded ditches and clay-pans.

There is a detailed distribution map available for: Victoria.

Calling

Males call whilst floating in open water. The call is a long rapidly pulsed musical trill with a purring quality and lasting 2-3 seconds - "cra-aw-aw-aw-aw-aw-aw-aw-aw-aw-aw-aw-aw-awk".

Life cycle

Distinguishing characteristics

Neobatrachus pictus Adult length: 48-58mm.
Eggs are pigmented and in jelly clumps in open water. Tadpoles are black with a bluish sheen. Adults have a vertical pupil and a distinct black metatarsal tubercle on the foot. In reproductively active individuals the skin on the back, sides, and legs, is covered with small round horny capped warts giving a prickly appearance.

Similar species (note: this version was written for Victorian species).

Easily distinguished from the burrowing members of the genus Limnodynastes by its vertical pupil, black metatarsal tubercles, and the absence of tibial glands. Distinguished from Heleioporus australiacus by its distinct black metatarsal tubercle. Neobatrachus pictus can also be differentiated from Neobatrachus sudelli, its close relative, because N. sudelli has loose skin on the body that extends from the side of the body to about the knee on the legs, giving a "baggy pants" appearance. In N. pictus loose skin does not extend from the body to the knees.