Annie O’Brien’s first thought was that the frog in their shower had eaten a lip balm.
Her two boys had raised the alarm about the “funny-shaped” green tree frog – one of several that had taken up residence in their Balgal Beach home near Townsville in Queensland.
Further investigation revealed a foam Nerf gun dart had become lodged inside the family’s resident amphibian.
Check out the video of a #Townsville vet nurse retrieving a toy that was swallowed by a green tree #frog. 🐸 Read more about the froggo's adventure>> https://t.co/dKAw3W39GT #TownsvilleShines @tsv_bulletin pic.twitter.com/arBt1aAIgf
— Leighton Smith (@LeightonESmith) February 8, 2022
“I grew up in the UK so when you see things like this you go, ‘oh my god, that’s so wild,’ but when you live in Australia for 20 years, it’s like ‘oh god, what are we doing with this frog at 9 o’clock at night?’” she said.
“I thought we really need to do the right thing by this frog because we’ve obviously contributed to this.”
A quick internet search and late-night call to snake handler Trish Prendergast resulted in a trip to the emergency room to get the frog some help.
Prendergast, a senior veterinary nurse and reptile coordinator for the North Queensland Wildlife Centre, said the Nerf dart had become stuck diagonally inside.
Using a teaspoon to pry open its mouth, Prendergast was able to remove the dart which was about the same length as the frog’s body.
“You would be surprised at what they shove in their mouths,” Prendergast said. “There would have been a bug or something on or next to the Nerf dart, so it’s gone for the bug, pounced on it to eat it and shoved the Nerf dart into its mouth.”
When the O’Brien family moved in to their Balgal Beach home two years ago, they quickly learned it came with several amphibious housemates.
“And I’m sure more have moved in since,” O’Brien said. “They come out at night. They don’t worry you at all, though this one obviously bit off more than he could chew.”
Since then her two boys, Cooper, 9, and Callum, 7, have adopted the frogs as pets, with each one getting a different name every week.
When they found the frog in trouble, they knew they had to help.
When frogs eat something they shouldn’t, they don’t regurgitate it like humans.
When they accidentally eat a living wasp or poisonous insect, they will push their stomach out of their mouth like a pocket turned inside out, “scoop out” the offending object and then swallow their stomach again, Prendergast said.
However, in this case the dart was lodged diagonally, meaning the frog wouldn’t have been able to do that and would have likely died without intervention.
Prendergast said the incident was a reminder to keep litter and other objects away from wildlife.
Prendergastand fellow snake catcher Jeremy often get called out to rescue animals that have become entangled or trapped in litter such as plastic bags, or in one case a tennis ball.
On Tuesday night she said they received a call to rescue an eastern brown snake that had been caught in an empty beer can after hunting a family of mice. Having swallowed the mice that had been nesting in the can, it had become trapped and had to be cut free.
O’Brien said the green tree frog had been “reinstated” to the shower and appeared to be happy, healthy and trouble-free.
“The whole thing was funny and then watching the video back again is just like: that poor frog, what it’s been through,” O’Brien said.
“Hopefully it doesn’t have a long memory; hopefully it remembers not to eat nerf darts, but hopefully it doesn’t remember the trauma.”
