Animal Diversity Web

Ge­o­graphic Range

Lito­ria platy­cephala oc­cu­pies the south­ern arid re­gions of Aus­tralia.

• Biogeographic Regions
• australian
  • native

Habi­tat

The wa­ter-hold­ing frog prefers to live in grass­lands, tem­po­rary swamps, clay­pans, and bil­li­bongs. Their dis­tri­b­u­tion is lim­ited to south­ern Aus­tralia (S. Aus­tralian Frog­cen­sus 1999).

• Terrestrial Biomes
• savanna or grassland

• Aquatic Biomes
• rivers and streams

Phys­i­cal De­scrip­tion

The wa­ter-hold­ing frog is char­ac­ter­ized by a broad, flat head, com­pletely webbed toes, and a stout body which is usu­ally dull gray to dark brown or green. They also have small eyes that are placed some­what lat­er­ally and for­ward-di­rected, en­hanc­ing vi­sion down­ward and binoc­u­lar per­spec­tive (Cog­ger and Zweifel 1998). The wa­ter-hold­ing frog can also be char­ac­ter­ized by its dis­tinct call of a long drawn out "mawww, mawww". The male frogs range in size from 42-64mm, where the fe­males range from 50-72mm (S. Aus­tralian Frog­cen­sus 1999).

• Other Physical Features
• ectothermic
• bilateral symmetry

De­vel­op­ment

• Development - Life Cycle
• metamorphosis

Re­pro­duc­tion

The wa­ter-hold­ing frog only emerges from deep un­der­ground after it rains to breed. It lays large amounts of spawn in still water after floods. Some eggs may be at­tached to veg­e­ta­tion, or spread in a thin film on the sur­face, thus en­sur­ing ad­e­quate oxy­gen in warm wa­ters suf­fer­ing from oxy­gen de­ple­tion (Cog­ger and Zweifel 1998). Tad­poles of the wa­ter-hold­ing frog can reach a max­i­mum length of 60mm (S. Aus­tralian Frog­cen­sus 1999).

• Key Reproductive Features
• gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate)

Be­hav­ior

Lito­ria platy­cephala has the abil­ity to un­dergo an amaz­ing process called aes­ti­va­tion. Dur­ing hot, dry con­di­tions, the wa­ter-hold­ing frog buries it­self in the sandy ground and be­comes in­ac­tive, main­tain­ing a re­duced meta­bolic rate. Dur­ing aes­ti­va­tion, the wa­ter-hold­ing frog se­cretes mu­cous from the skin, which lines the cham­ber and hard­ens around the frog's body, al­low­ing the frog to hold large amounts of water. This im­per­vi­ous outer skin "co­coon" also pre­vents des­ic­ca­tion and is torn open by the frog when it emerges from deep un­der­ground after it rains (Cog­ger and Zweifel 1998). Aes­ti­va­tion in many as­pects is sim­i­lar to hi­ber­na­tion, dif­fer­ing only in that hi­ber­na­tion is a re­sponse to cold con­di­tions (With­ers 1993).

• Key Behaviors
• motile

Food Habits

Lito­ria platy­cephala prefers to eat a diet con­sist­ing mainly of in­sects and small fish. The wa­ter-hold­ing frog has the rare abil­ity to catch their prey un­der­wa­ter. They do this by using their strong, mus­cu­lar at­trib­utes and lung­ing at their prey, stuff­ing it in their mouths.

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Pos­i­tive

Be­cause of their unique and un­usual abil­ity to re­tain large amounts of water, the wa­ter-hold­ing frog has be­come the best ex­am­ple of a bur­row­ing frog tra­di­tion­ally used by the Abo­rig­inies. As the water is stored in the blad­der or in the pock­ets of skin, a slight pres­sure ap­plied by hand causes the frog to re­lease water. The Abo­rig­i­nal peo­ple dig up Lito­ria platy­cephala and enjoy the re­source this frog has to offer. This water is very fresh and after the Abo­rig­inies drink, the frog is re­leased un­harmed (S. Aus­tralian Frog­cen­sus 1999).

Con­ser­va­tion Sta­tus

• IUCN Red List

  Least Concern
  More information

• CITES

  No special status

Con­trib­u­tors

Megan Kierzek (au­thor), Michi­gan State Uni­ver­sity, James Hard­ing (ed­i­tor), Michi­gan State Uni­ver­sity.

Ref­er­ences

Cog­ger, H., R. Zweifel. 1998. En­cy­clo­pe­dia of Rep­tiles and Am­phib­ians: A Com­pre­hen­sive Il­lus­trated Guide by In­ter­na­tional Ex­perts. San Diego: Aca­d­e­mic Press.

South­ern Aus­tralian Frog­cen­sus, 1999. "South­ern Aus­tralian Frog­cen­sus" (On-line). Ac­cessed No­vem­ber 15, 1999 at http://​epa.​sa.​gov.​au/​frogcensus/​platycep.​htm.​.

With­ers, P. 1999. "Re­search In­ter­ests. Aes­ti­va­tion" (On-line). Ac­cessed No­vem­ber 15, 1999 at http://​general.​uwa.​edu.​au/​u/​uwgzool/​pcwaest.​htm.