Article · Wikipedia archive · Last revised Jul 1, 2026

Assa (frog)

Assa is a genus of frogs in the family Myobatrachidae. These frogs are endemic to a few parts of eastern Australia.

Last revised
Jul 1, 2026
Read time
≈ 1 min
Length
244 w
Citations
3
Source
Assa
A. darlingtoni
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Amphibia
Order: Anura
Family: Myobatrachidae
Genus: Assa
Tyler, 1972
Species

Assa is a genus of frogs in the family Myobatrachidae. These frogs are endemic to a few parts of eastern Australia.1

Both species are found on a few mountains in Queensland and New South Wales. For a significant portion of time, the only species in this genus was the pouched frog (A. darlingtoni). However, a second species, A. wollumbin, was described in 2021 following a rangewide genetic survey of A. darlingtoni. Both species are notable in that the males have subcutaneous pouches on their hips in which they carry their tadpoles until they metamorphosize.23

Species

Common name Binomial name
Pouched frog, hip-pocket frog, or Australian marsupial frog Assa darlingtoni (Loveridge, 1933)
Wollumbin pouched frog or Mount Wollumbin hip-pocket frog Assa wollumbin Mahony, Hines, Mahony, Moses, Catalano, Myers, and Donnellan, 2021
References

References

  1. "Assa Tyler, 1972 | Amphibian Species of the World". amphibiansoftheworld.amnh.org. Retrieved 2022-08-02.
  2. Mahony, Michael J.; Hines, Harry B.; Mahony, Stephen V.; Moses, Bede; Catalano, Sarah R.; Myers, Steven; Donnellan, Stephen C. (2021-10-26). "A new hip-pocket frog from mid-eastern Australia (Anura: Myobatrachidae: Assa)". Zootaxa. 5057 (4): 451–486. doi:10.11646/zootaxa.5057.4.1. ISSN 1175-5334. PMID 34811197. S2CID 239943400.
  3. Cutajar, Timothy P.; Portway, Christopher D.; Gillard, Grace L.; Rowley, Jodi J. L. (2022-06-29). "Australian Frog Atlas: species' distribution maps informed by the FrogID dataset". Technical Reports of the Australian Museum (Online). 36: 1–48. doi:10.3853/j.1835-4211.36.2022.1789. ISSN 1835-4211.