Species Spotlight: Cameron Highland Sticky Frog
Species spotlight:
Would you still love me if I was a sticky frog? Find out the answer to that questions on our nature through a new lens page, and find out just what a sticky frog is on this page!
Names & Nicknames: Cameron Highland sticky frog, sticky frog
Size: A fully grown male can reach a whopping 3cm in length, which is just a little bit shorter than a paperclip. As with many of our froggy friends, the females tend to be a little bigger, but they are certainly still no goliath frogs.
Favourite Hangout: These frogs like one place and one place only, the cloud forests on top of Mount Brinchang in Malaysia. The wetter (and mossier), the better, so the Cameron Highlands is perfect, hence their name.
Favourite Snack: Little bits for little croakers – small arthropods such as spiders, grasshoppers, and weevils are just the ticket.
Toilet Humour: Predators, beware; these frog-shaped paperclips will produce a VERY sticky mucus if you get up in their business.
Love Language: Like most frog species, a male will call out into the night to attract a female. To avoid confusion in a thick jungle filled with frogs, each has its own unique call! The male Cameron Highland sticky frog's style has been described as a soft 'ting' – could you imagine it?
Red Flags: When you have a species that is found in only one place, any disturbances can be pretty detrimental. Although this species is found within a national park, the Cameron Highlands is a popular place for tourists as well as illegal poachers of slipper orchards. Activities such as hiking, expanding tourist facilities, and the illegal activities of these orchid poachers all further threaten this already very sensitive species.
If you see them: Then we hope you are enjoying your stroll through the Cameron highlands, it is certainly a beautiful place! However, if you do see a warty friend, please make sure to give it lots of space; disturbance by tourists is one of its greatest threats, after all.
Epic Journeys: These frogs are real homebodies; they like their moist, mossy cloud forests, and that is where they remain. Unless they are turfed out by unruly tourists and construction sites, of course.
Glow-up: These frogs, like many, go through what is called complete metamorphosis, so they have a pretty radical glow-up. (And a cheeky bit of mutualism – where species in the wild do mutual favours for each other, basically.) Females lay their eggs inside the pitcher plant, Nepenthes macfarlanei, where they'll grow and hatch whilst being shielded from predators. The eggs will then hatch into tadpoles that will remain in the pitcher plant until they go through a drastic transformation, slowly gaining legs and becoming a fully developed Cameron Highland frog.
Facts: The Cameron Highland Sticky frog was a relatively recent discovery, having been first documented in 2009. However, this certainly isn't unusual for amphibians, as new species are constantly being discovered. In fact, between 1997 and 2012, a new species was discovered every two-and-a-half days, and we are still discovering more!
Who are they in the friendship group: The shy kid that always just seems a bit... sticky.
How threatened are they: Critically Endangered
Name:
Cameron Highland Sticky Frog
Habitat:
Cloud forests around the top of Mount Brinchang, Cameron Highlands, Pahang, Malaysia.
Diet:
Small arthropods such as spiders grasshoppers and weevils
Size:
Adult males are 2.9-3.1cm in length and the size of females is unknown
Lifespan:
Unknown
Threats:
Tourist activities, habitat degradation
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