ancient frog that never evolved a tadpole stage

Size
Length: 3–4 cm, Weight: 3–5 g
Lifespan
20–30 years
Diet
Small insects, spiders, mites, springtails, beetles, and other terrestrial invertebrates. Uses a lunging motion rather than a tongue-flip to catch prey. Hunts at night using sight and vibration, foraging in leaf litter and on damp forest floors.
Habitat
Damp, shaded native forests with deep leaf litter and high humidity. Often found under rotting logs, in rock crevices, and along stream banks. Requires undisturbed forest with consistent moisture and protection from drying winds.
Range
Found only in the Coromandel Peninsula and near Te Kuiti in the central North Island. Restricted to native forests at higher elevations between 400–1,000 metres.
Endemism
Endemic
Main Threats
Chytrid fungus (Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis) is the primary threat, causing mass die-offs. Also threatened by habitat loss from forest clearance, predation by rats and pigs, and climate change affecting forest floor moisture.
Population
One of the world's most ancient and primitive frogs, with no tadpole stage — young emerge from eggs as fully formed froglets. Once widespread in the Coromandel, populations have crashed by over 80% due to chytrid fungus. Intensive conservation programmes include captive breeding and disease management.
Conservation Status
Nationally Vulnerable
A small piece of bark with eyes might not seem like a survivor of deep time. Yet Archey's frog has occupied the damp leaf litter of the Coromandel for over 100 million years. It changes little. It asks little. It requires only that the world remain moist and undisturbed. The world has not been cooperative on either count. Leiopelma archeyi is the smallest of New Zealand's native frogs, reaching three to four centimetres. Its colour shifts from olive green to brown, depending on the individual and the light. It is built for disappearing into the forest floor, tucked under a rotting log or pressed into a rock crevice. Nightfall brings movement. A small invertebrate passes within lunging distance. Like all Leiopelma species, it does not flip a tongue. It throws its entire head forward. This ungainly technique has been refined since before flowering plants existed. It works. The particular catastrophe closing in on this species distinguishes it from its cousins. Chytrid fungus, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, abbreviated to Bd because the full name is too grim to repeat, has torn through populations on the Coromandel Peninsula. Herpetologists worldwide are alarmed. Numbers have crashed by over 80 per cent since the 1990s. This is not a slow decline. It is a collapse, and it is ongoing. Unlike the island-dwelling Maud Island frog and Hamilton's frog, which can be protected by controlling rats on a defined patch of land, Archey's frog lives on the mainland. Bd can arrive on the mud of a tramper's boot. Conservation work continues. Captive breeding programmes, disease research, and habitat fencing are active fronts. But the species operates with very little margin. It lacks eardrums and cannot croak. Communication occurs through chemical signals and barely perceptible movements. In Māori tradition these quiet, ancient frogs were understood as kaitiaki of the damp, dark places. They were guardians of the understorey. Their presence signalled a world that had not yet been disturbed. Their silence now carries a different weight. Whether Bd can be managed at scale remains one of the more urgent open questions in New Zealand conservation. The frog itself offers no opinion. It simply waits, as it has always waited, for the next wet night and a decent beetle.