Nearby a female hip pocket frog hears her mate and crawls away to find a meal For the past eight nights and days the pair has guarded this bit of forest floor together Now the male focuses his golden eyes on one small spot on the leaf litter There beneath a covering of orange and brown leaves is a glob of glistening jelly studded with a dozen pearl like eggs the tiny parents developing
It s December in a very dry summer for Australia's temperate rainforest As the sky goes from dark to dim a warm wind blows away the early morning mist and turns the squishy leaf litter s surface crisp But beneath the leaf blanket the glob of jelly and eggs stays wet the way the eggs need to be for oxygen to slip through the rubbery shells to the developing tadpoles
