Mucocutaneous fungal disease in tadpoles of Bufo marinus in Australia

[Extract] Infectious diseases in wild tadpoles have been reported rarely. Saprolegnia was reported to kill tadpoles of Spea bombifrons (Bragg and Bragg, 1958), Rana berlandieri and Pseudacris streckeri in pools in Oklahoma (Bragg, 1962). In West Virginia, tadpole edema virus killed tadpoles of Rana catesbiana (Wolf et al., 1968). The bacterium, Aeromonas hydrophila, was reported to be the cause of mass mortality of tadpoles of Rana sylvatica in a pond on Rhode Island (Nyman, 1986) and tadpoles of Alytes obstetricans in the Spanish Pyrenean Mountains (Marquez et al., 1995). Prototheca richardsi, an alga isolated from the feces of tadpoles in Britain, was found to cause growth inhibition (Wong and Beebee, 1994). Sporangia of Batrachochytrium, a nonhyphal chytrid fungus causing mortality in adult anurans, occur in the epidermis of the mouthparts of apparently healthy tadpoles in Australia (Berger et al., 1999)