The Western Spotted Frog (Heleioporus albopunctatus) is a species

Species

In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...

 of frog

Frog

Frogs are amphibians in the order Anura , formerly referred to as Salientia . Most frogs are characterized by a short body, webbed digits , protruding eyes and the absence of a tail...

 in the Myobatrachidae

Myobatrachidae

Myobatrachidae is a family of frogs found in Australia and New Guinea. Members of this family vary greatly in size, from species less than long, to the second largest frog in Australia, the Giant Barred Frog , at in length...

 family.
It is endemic to Western Australia

Western Australia

Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...

.
Its natural habitat

Habitat

* Habitat , a place where a species lives and grows*Human habitat, a place where humans live, work or play** Space habitat, a space station intended as a permanent settlement...

s are temperate forest

Forest

A forest, also referred to as a wood or the woods, is an area with a high density of trees. As with cities, depending where you are in the world, what is considered a forest may vary significantly in size and have various classification according to how and what of the forest is composed...

s, temperate shrubland

Shrubland

Shrubland, scrubland, scrub or brush is a plant community characterized by vegetation dominated by shrubs, often also including grasses, herbs, and geophytes. Shrubland may either occur naturally or be the result of human activity...

, intermittent river

River

A river is a natural watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, a lake, a sea, or another river. In a few cases, a river simply flows into the ground or dries up completely before reaching another body of water. Small rivers may also be called by several other names, including...

s, freshwater marsh

Marsh

In geography, a marsh, or morass, is a type of wetland that is subject to frequent or continuous flood. Typically the water is shallow and features grasses, rushes, reeds, typhas, sedges, other herbaceous plants, and moss....

es, rocky areas, granite

Granite

Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...

 outcrops, arable land

Arable land

In geography and agriculture, arable land is land that can be used for growing crops. It includes all land under temporary crops , temporary meadows for mowing or pasture, land under market and kitchen gardens and land temporarily fallow...

, pastureland, open excavations, and canal

Canal

Canals are man-made channels for water. There are two types of canal:#Waterways: navigable transportation canals used for carrying ships and boats shipping goods and conveying people, further subdivided into two kinds:...

s and ditches.
It is threatened by habitat loss.

Breeding Biology.

Heleioporus albopunctatus has terrestrial egg

Egg (biology)

An egg is an organic vessel in which an embryo first begins to develop. In most birds, reptiles, insects, molluscs, fish, and monotremes, an egg is the zygote, resulting from fertilization of the ovum, which is expelled from the body and permitted to develop outside the body until the developing...

 deposition. Males excavate burrow

Burrow

A burrow is a hole or tunnel dug into the ground by an animal to create a space suitable for habitation, temporary refuge, or as a byproduct of locomotion. Burrows provide a form of shelter against predation and exposure to the elements, so the burrowing way of life is quite popular among the...

s up to 1 m deep in sandy substrates surrounding ephemeral waterbodies, and commence calling in autumn (March/April). Amplexus (mating) occurs in the burrow and females deposit a clutch of eggs embedded in foam, in a chamber at the base of the burrow. Eggs develop to mid-stage tadpoles within the eggs, but final development is dependent on winter rains filling the waterbody and flooding burrows. Tadpoles then hatch and complete development in the pond.

Some clutches of eggs have been found to be infested by the larvae of a dipteran fly Aphiura breviceps and females of this fly may reside in the burrows of this frog where they are presumed to feed on the outer capsules of the eggs. In one study, around 7% of burrows were found to have eggs infested with maggots from this phorid fly and the mean egg clutch size was 391, and on average, only 2.8% of clutches were found to experience some form of egg mortality.

Population Biology.

Genetic studies have implied that there is good dispersal across the range of this species, however high levels of inbreeding were detected between some populations in the central wheatbelt region of WA, indicating that habitat fragmentation and salinity may be restricting gene flow