Two hundred and ten years looking for the Giant Burrowing Frog

The giant burrowing frog Heleioporus australiacus (Shaw) is a large, morphologically distinctive, but cryptic frog found in south eastern Australia. This paper reviews the literature pertaining to the Giant Burrowing Frog. It is a forest dependent species found on the coast and adjacent ranges of south-eastern Australia, with five congeners in south-west Western Australia. The species is listed as vulnerable in NSW and Victoria and under Commonwealth legislation, although there is no obvious cause for a decline nor is it clear how much decline has occurred. Proposed threats to the species survival include forestry operations, habitat destruction, introduced species, pollutants, increased UV and disease. A large gap exists in the species distributional records and H. australiacus may represent two distinct species, although the evidence for this remains inconclusive. Standard detection methods for frogs do not apply well to the Giant Burrowing Frog and alternative methods are required to provide a more detailed understanding of its ecology and distribution.