litter or gravel. Females have been
recorded to lay between 652 and
1,290 eggs. Breeding occurs in wide,
flat sections of streams, and is
curtailed after heavy rains owing to
the risk of eggs and tadpoles being
swept away. The tadpoles grow to
distinct calls are produced by the
males’ vocal sacs: a throaty ‘ok-ok-
ok-ok-ok-ok’ emanates from solitary
individuals, while a long rasping
‘arrrr’, or growling call, originates
from males in a chorus. Although
M. fleayi is an obligate stream-
‘ The resilience displayed by
M. fleayi
provides hope
that
at least some frogs can beat this
lethal disease.’
about 100mm. in length before
metamorphosing, and have a
fusiform body with a tail twice as
long as the body. During the breed-
ing season (July to March) the males
position themselves under leaf litter,
on exposed rocks in stream beds, or
at the edges of pools besides streams,
and attract females by calling. Two
breeder, adults may disperse at other
times of the year, and have been
recorded in leaf litter several
hundred meters away from breeding
sites.
Some aspects of this frog’s biology
may have assisted to facilitate its
recovery. In particular, high adult
survival seems to be a key factor, as
theory predicts that long-lived
amphibians are more capable of
recovery after undergoing a
population decline, compared with
those that have low annual survival
probabilities, owing to how repro-
ductive failure between consecutive
years does not have such dramatic
consequences. In the study by
Newell et al., two individuals - a
male and a female - were persistently
recorded for the entire duration of
the project, indicating M. fleayi can
live for at least seven years in the
wild (a comparatively long lifespan).
This high adult survivorship and
longevity would enable M. fleayi to
persist through periods of poor
reproduction, as were recorded
during the monitoring study, which
found that in some years recruitment
events were negligible. Obviously, a
continued lack of recruitment would
result in the population eventually
dying out. Hence, ensuring protec-
tion of both the adults’ terrestrial
habitat, as well as their stream
breeding grounds, is vital so that the
population can continue to grow.