Mohamed bin Zayed Species project number 152511228

Abiotic and Biological habitat effects on the endangered Luidan Stream Toad in Malaysia

Currently we are working on surveying a load of sites around Mount Kinabalu. We are surveying sites that were visited in 2007 and 2010 as well as locating at least 29 new ones. We conduct habitat surveys during the day and during the night we perform Visual Encounter Surveys to try and locate or target species, we continue to survey sites where the species have not been found previously even though the superficially match the species target habitat. This is in an attempt to figure out what makes them different from the sites that are occupied and will hopefully provide us with a more detailed answer to the habitat requirements of this species. 

In March of 2016 we found our first Ansonia platysoma individuals. During two survey nights we have found a total of four individuals. The first night we found two adult individuals in stream 1 (one a pregnant female) and the second night we found a juvenile in stream 1 and another juvenile in stream 2. The find in stream 2 was pretty exciting as a flash flood caused by the earthquake have made the stream-bed barren as all of the vegetation has been swept away causing the immeidate stream bed to consist of bare rock and gravel. This is not ideal for finding A. platysoma as it just like its very similar sister species A. hanitschi is mostly found sitting on plants between 10-30cm above ground between 0-5meters away from the stream. The juvenile that was found indicates that there are still active adults around in close proximity, and despite the individual being found on one of the few plants still remaining fairly close to water, hopefully they will have the ability to re-populate the area once the stream-bed starts recovering.