Early November, following a conference in Rotorua, New Zealand, I had a few days to explore this intriguing country. I decided to head north and spend these days on the Coromandel peninsula. Here, two of New Zealand's endemic frogs can be found: Archey's frog (Leiopelma archeyi) and Hochstetter's frog (Leiopelma hochstetteri). They are regarded as being amongst the most primitive frogs in the world. These frogs display some unusual features, such as tail-wagging muscles in the adult stage (despite having no tail), the absence of eardrums, and spending the tadpole stage inside the egg, which are laid in moist places outside the water. Instead of by sound, these frogs are thought to communicate by scent. In the native forests of the Coromandel peninsula both species occur sympatrically. However, L. hochstetteri is more closely associated with small streams and seepages than L. archeyi, which is often found well away from aquatic environments. Nevertheless, some degree of overlap in habitat occurs. In the right habitat L. hochstetteri can still be found in good numbers, but L. archeyi populations have crashed since 1996, which might have been caused by Bd.
I was fortunate to find both Leiopelma species. Besides the frogs I also found shore skink (Oligosoma smithi) and rainbow skink (Lampropholis delicata), an introduced species from Australia. As anticipated, no geckos were found, as densities are often very low on the main islands, mostly due to a depressing long list of introduced avian and mammalian predators. Many native species are rare or have become extinct on the main islands and are nowadays confined to small offshore islands. In a desperate effort to preserve some of the remaining native species, New Zealand's Department of Conservation is trying to keep the numbers of introduced mammals (mostly rats, stoats, and possums) low by poison baiting and active trapping in some areas.
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