Taudactylus acutirostris -- Sharp-snouted Day Frog

Unlike the majority of the world's frog species, the Sharp-snouted Day Frog was diurnal, meaning it was active during the day. These frogs lived on rainforest streams of the Big Tableland area of Queensland Australia's Wet Tropics, where it was extremely abundant (100 frogs per 100 meters of stream).

In the early 1990's their number declined precipitously due to the arrival of the pathogenic chytrid fungus, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis. The Sharp-snouted Day Frog is the first free-ranging wildlife species known to have been driven to extinction by a disease. The last known individual of this species was seen near Mt. Hartley in 1997.

© Image by Martin Cohen - www.wildaboutaustralia.com
Text by Kerry Kriger