Pobblebonk Frog Limnodynastes dumerilii

Hi there, Yianni. For your information, The Department of Sustainability and the Environment states that it is not permissible to keep a wild-caught specimen as a pet, as dictated by the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988 and the Wildlife Act 1975. Ideally, you should leave tadpoles where you find them, as translocation of individual animals can disrupt local gene pools, and contribute to the spread of disease.

Furthermore, instances of albinoism in frogs are extremely rare, even in controlled environments, as described in scholarly journals TRSSA and the Journal of Heredity. Hope this helps!

Hi Emerald, thanks for your enquiry.  The Live Exhibits team recommend placing the frog back in the garden bed not far from where you found it.  Dig a small hole and let it burrow down.

Hi Darren, it is important to remember that keeping wildlife is illegal and they should be returned to the wild. Saying that – to keep them happy and healthy I can give you a few pointers.

1. You will need to either change the dam water at regular intervals or provide good filtration for the tank they are being kept in. Either swap it for more dam water so that they are getting the same water as what they will be returned to. As they live in the ice cream tub of water they release lots of waste that needs to be removed from the enclosure. If you don’t live beside the dam to collect water – you may need to try to filter the water a little – you can buy small filters that would work well in a small enclosure from pet shops.
2. To feed growing tadpoles – purchase some lettuce – give it a really good rinse and freeze it. Freezing it will break down the cell walls and open up all the nutrients for the tadpoles to munch on. Drop in small amounts of pre-frozen lettuce daily. They also enjoy feeding on all the algae that will rapidly grow on the lettuce.

Hi Chris, if you have Pobblebonk tadpoles / frogs it is good to remove your frogs as they metamorphose and transfer them to an enclosure that they can burrow underground and rest. Your frog has a very different diet to the tadpoles – they eat insects and any other small animals they can fit into their mouths. I would recommend that you either collect some invertebrates from your school grounds – such as crickets, cockroaches, grasshoppers etc or you can purchase crickets from lots of pet shops. Newly emerged frogs tend to have quite small stomachs so small meals (i.e. 1 – 2 food items) every one to two days.

Hi Diane tadpoles have some great survival strategies to help them live in adverse conditions – even in a laundry tub. You should find that some of them will grow quite quickly and all four legs will pop out and they will metamorphose into frogs at a rapid rate – other tadpoles may stay as tadpoles for more than 12 months. This is a strategy to divide the emergence of the young between two years to increase the chance of some surviving to reproduce. If they are burrowing frogs, such as Pobblebonks they may find it hard to climb out of a laundry tub – the best thing you can do is provide a platform and branch for them to climb out of the water and onto land when they become frogs. As to what they eat – tadpoles will feed on algae and other things they can scrape of the plants and walls of the pond. Here at the museum we freeze pieces of lettuce that we then add to the tadpoles enclosures so they can feed. Here are links to the Live Exhibits blog that shows photos of Pobblebonk egg masses (which sit above the water) and Pobblebonk tadpoles just before they leave the water to become frogs.

Great weather for frogs!

Pobbles Grow Up

Hi Laura,

 Great questions about your frogs. The first question about how goldfish affect frogs and eggs is – yes they do enjoy eating eggs and tadpoles so you need to be careful when you introduce these fish into a pond system. If you wanted to be good to the frogs you could try some local fish such as Southern Pygmy Perch that are not interested in feeding on the young tadpoles and they are local to the Melbourne region. The second question about them jumping into your pond – chlorine does not go all that well with frogs but if you can get them out quickly enough they may be fine. If they are pobblebonk frogs, or other frogs with claws rather than pads on their fingers that will really struggle to climb out of a pond – adding a ramp for them to climb onto and out of the water is a great solution to help. If they do however have pads on the end of their toes they are tree frogs and should be able to use these pads to climb up the wall – although a ramp to escape would also help. Best of luck

Hi Maddie, I don’t think you need to be worried about having 3,900 frogs all calling from your backyard. The number of tadpoles that actually make it through to becoming frogs is very tiny – many will die before maturing. Within your pond ecosystem the tadpoles feed on the algae and plant matter and are quite low on the food chain. This means they can exist in quite large numbers before competing for food. Frogs on the other hand are predators and need other animals in which to feed upon. Other animals such as bugs tend to be harder to come by than algae so they cannot exist in such large numbers.

I think you will be lucky to have a big population of frogs calling from your yard – with pobblebonks it often tends to only be a few individuals calling from a single pond each season.

Hi Emma - the Pobblebonk isn't deadly (except to the small invertebrates that form its diet), however we certainly don't reccommend licking it! You can find out more about this interesting species from the following links:

To hear the frog call, the “bonk”, and another unusual photo, see: http://museumvictoria.com.au/bioinformatics/frog/images/dumelive3.htm

Try also: http://frogs.org.au/frogs/species/Limnodynastes/dumerili/

Hope this helps!

Hi Kim, there are several possible reasons your frogs are not making noise.

Firstly, they may be juveniles or may all be females. In this case they either won't be calling yet or won't be calling at all. Secondly, the conditions may not be right for calling, particularly if the substrate is too dry or the wrong type.

It might be difficult to determine the exact cause of the issue but you could try the following things. Use cocopeat as a substrate if you're not doing so already, or swap the substrate for fresh substrate, whatever you're using. Add more moisture to the enclosure, at least temporarily, to encourage them to think it's raining. Add live food or a variety of crickets/cockroaches/flies to stimulate activity.

Good luck with your frogs and we hope this helps.

Hi Ross. Good question! We contacted our Live Exhibits department and they provided us with the following information:

The fish in the pond is the most likely reason that no tadpoles are surviving. Pobblebonk tadpoles are generally really hardy and will survive in just about anything so we believe they are being eaten.

Ideally in an outside pond you need varying water depths. Shallow areas where the tadpoles have access to good sunlight and higher temperatures, as well as deeper sections to get away from threats and to retreat to if it is excessively warm. Water depth should be 45 – 60 cm with some shallower areas. 

The frogs in the foam box will have to be fed on frozen lettuce, bok choy or spinach leaves and will take quite a lot of work. We would suggest that if you really want to encourage frogs to breed in the pond then removing the fish or swapping to some frog-friendlier types would be the best solution. Species such as Murray River Rainbows or White Clouds are a good choice.

Any froglets that emerge must be left to disperse naturally. It is illegal to translocate frogs as you may be spreading things such as chytrid fungus. It can also affect the genetic integrity of frog populations.

Hi Wendi,
Pobblebonk spawn can be gently picked up by cupping both hands underneath and lifting it up. Alternatively you can use a small net to do the same. Transfer it to a bucket or container and then gently tip it into the new pond. Pobblebonk eggs are generally safe to leave in with White Clouds as the tadpoles will quickly grow too big for them to eat. Even if they do eat some they are unlikely to eat them all.

Hi Kathryn, 

We forwarded your questions to Museum Victoria’s animal keepers, who responded with the following:

Pobblebonks are common in certain situations throughout their range – the subspecies you have in Rutherglen is the Eastern Banjo Frog (Limnodynastes dumerilii dumerilii). These situations include gardens, where the soil is often moist and a range of plant species attract a range of invertebrate species. So your garden is more attractive to frogs than a paddock across the road, and if you relocate the frog it will most likely return at the first opportunity. Females lay their eggs in ponds and dams, but do not make a nest as such.  Pobblebonks will bury themselves underground during periods of inactivity, or even just during the day. Once uncovered, they will rebury themselves as soon as possible.

Snakes can be attracted to frogs, but generally only if frogs are present in large numbers. They are usually more attracted to water bodies, for the water itself rather than the frogs. There will probably be snakes in the area anyway, and a few Pobblebonks will not make your garden any more or less attractive.

As for keeping the frogs you don't need a licence to keep pobblebonks for private purposes, provided they have come from a lawful source. It is not legal to take them from the wild. If they came from the wild then ideally release them back where they came from. We feed our pobblebonks three times a week and one of those feeds we dig them up and make sure they eat. Otherwise, we dust the crickets etc in vitamins and leave them on the surface overnight.

Hi Lorna, the incubation period for Banjo Frog eggs can be as little as four days, but they can remain as tadpoles for up to 15 months. Both time periods depend greatly on the ambient temperature at the time.

Hi Glenn,

We forwarded your question to the Museum's Live Exhibits team and they provided the following information:

Banjo Frogs will eat Marsh Frogs unless they are well fed themselves. But if you keep the food up to the Banjos, this shouldn't be a problem. Coco peat is best for burrowing species such as Banjo Frogs, but fine gravel will work just as well and is easier to clean. Soil is not particularly good as the acidity is wrong and soil tends to turn 'sour' over time with constant watering and accumulation of wastes. Frogs tend to stop eating when they are full so you are unlikely to overfeed them, but they are easily underfed. An adult frog will take 8-12 medium-sized crickets per week, and they are best fed three times a week or so. That is 2-4 crickets per feed, and this should only take a minute or two.