A Lower Hutt boy has made what the Department of Conservation's calling a "remarkable discovery" while exploring a creek near his house.
Rumi Lourie found three rare Hochstetter's frogs – one of whom he's named Tank.
The native species can be hard to spot due to their ability to camouflage with their environment.
The 12-year-old told 1News the first time he saw Tank, he saw "the little eyes, saw the bridge on his head... and the colours on his back".
It's the first time they've been found south of the King Country.
"It's quite special, and like, quite lucky to have found them. It's just really, really rare," he said.
He added that the discovery "feels great because I just like finding frogs".
"I don't often see them a lot, so when I find a super rare kind of frog, then it's a lot more interesting."
DOC biodiversity ranger Pattern Reid said it was "very, very cool discovery".
"They're well outside of their natural range, which is Waikato and northwards."
After a bit of digging, the frogs were linked to biologist Dr Ben Bell, who had lived near the creek while breeding the frogs in captivity as part of a research project in the 1970s.
"I found three had escaped during a flood, and those three happened to be two from Coromandel and one from the east cape, but of course, they're not the same frogs – they are offspring."
DOC said genetic testing was underway to see exactly which population of frogs they had descended from.
"They found juvenile frogs and adult frogs, which shows that they have been breeding over the last 50 years," Reid said.
Bell added that it was "a very satisfying outcome, after so many years, to see him so interested in them, and also to know the frogs have actually survived there despite me thinking they'd long since disappeared".
Rumi will be keeping a watchful eye on the Hochstetter's frogs.
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