Introducing the Mountain Chicken

Hello my name is Jeff and I work for Durrell as their Amphibian Programme Officer. I am based in the City of Bath and my job means I am responsible for developing and looking after all of Durrell’s amphibian projects around the world.

Me on a raft (Photo: Jeff Dawson)

I have been working at Durrell since July last year before which I have lived and worked in a number of countries around the world including Madagascar, Papua New Guinea and Montserrat. By coincidence, one of my projects with Durrell and the species I am going to tell you about is from Montserrat - the mountain chicken!

Now I know with that name it sounds like a bird but it is in fact a frog … but not just any frog, it is the second largest frog in the world. Females are larger than males and can reach lengths of over 20cm and weigh over 700g! Much bigger than the frogs you or I would find in our garden ponds. They have very powerful hind legs and can jump over 2m in a single leap ... that's the height of a tall man! It is due to these meaty hind legs that it got its name mountain chicken as they were a popular food dish with local people that apparently tasted a bit like chicken.

Mountain chicken, Montserrat (Photo: Jeff Dawson)

The mountain chicken is only found on two islands in the Eastern Caribbean - Montserrat and Dominica. It used to be widespread over both islands, commonly occurring in peoples back gardens but is now only found around streams in forest or other dense vegetation. It is nocturnal, meaning it is active at night and spends the daytime resting in holes or rock crevices.

Like all amphibians the mountain chicken is carnivorous and a pretty unfussy eater, eating anything it can fit in its mouth. This includes insects, snails, tarantulas and even small lizards and snakes. It is a sit-and-wait or ambush predator. This means it does not chase down its food rather it uses its colouration as excellent camouflage to wait motionless until dinner comes walking or crawling past. As both Montserrat and Dominica have no native land mammals the mountain chicken is a top land predator on both islands and therefore a very important part of the food web.

Tarantula for tea! (Photo: SL Adams/Durrell)

Unlike frogs we have in Britain the mountain chicken does not lay eggs in water. Instead the female makes a foam nest in a burrow in which the tadpoles develop. Both the female and male take turns guarding the nest from predators. The female only produces one fertile nest a year of between 25 and 60 froglets which is very low reproductive rate for a frog. This is more similar to birds than other frogs so the mountain chicken is really a bit more like a bird like than just its name!

Mother guarding her tadpoles in nest (Photo: G Garcia)

However, the mountain chicken is also one of the rarest frogs in the world with perhaps less than 100 left in the wild. It is listed as Critically Endangered which means that it is very close to going extinct, just like the dodo and dinosaurs, unless conservationists like myself can find a way to save it. There are a number of threats facing it but the main one is a lethal fungal disease that is commonly called chytrid. This is a fungus that infects the skin of amphibians and can cause mass die offs in species, like the mountain chicken. I’ll tell you more about this and why our work on it is so important in my next blog.