Mountain Chorus Frogs: Dark-Masked Eyes and Brown-Gray-Olive Bodies

Summary: Mountain chorus frogs are in forested, hilly, shallow-watered habitats in the Appalachian-wooded foothills and mountains of 10 southeastern states.

mountain chorus frog (Pseudacris brachyphona): Brad Michael "Bones" Glorioso/USGS National Wetlands Research Center, Public Domain, via USGS Amphibian Research and Monitoring Initiative (ARMI)

Mountain chorus frogs are in forested, hilly, shallow-watered habitats in the Appalachian-wooded southeastern Unitedstatesian foothills and mountains in Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia.

Mountain chorus frogs bear their common name for braving and breeding in high, hilly habitats that bring in plains- and piedmont-loving, somewhat overlapping upland chorus frogs. The scientific, species name Pseudacris brachyphona (from Greek ψευδής [“false”], ἀκρίς [“locust”], βραχύς [“brief”] and φωνή [“sound”]) confirms Hylidae tree-frog family and Anura amphibian order memberships. Edward Drinker Cope (July 28, 1840-April 12, 1897) in 1889 described the hylid (from Greek ύλη, “forest” via Latin Hylas and -ειδής, “-like” via Latin -idae).

The anuran (from Greek ἀν-, “not” and οὐρά, “tail” via ανοὐρά) expects forested hills with shallow temporary-flooded fields, roadside ditches and small ponds, pools or streams.

February through April function as breeding season months in mountain chorus frog life cycles that fit with other early spring-breeding hylids such as similar-looking spring peepers.

Mountain chorus frogs go around on long legs with round, small toe tips and small, sticky toe pads more like leaping wood frogs than walking treefrogs. They head for even higher altitudes above sea level than upland chorus frogs, whose overlapping distribution ranges have rare habitat niches in Appalachian foothills and mountains. The male advertisement call is almost identical to the coastal plain, lower altitude-inhabiting, non-overlapping Brimley's chorus frog's and squirrel treefrog's respective rrrack-rrrack-rrrack-rrrack-rrrack and rrraak trilled voices.

Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis fungal disease; fertilizer runoff; global-warmed, ultraviolet-radiated climate change; nonnative species; toxic pesticides; and trematode fluke-induced deformities jeopardize mountain chorus frogs in North American habitats.

Mountain chorus frogs know the nocturnal lifestyles of more secretive, warier upland chorus frogs even as they sometime keep daylight hours along hoppable, moist woodland trails.

One-, one-plus-year old physically and sexually mature female mountain chorus frogs leave 400 eggs in 10- to 50-egg groups on shallow-water, stream-edge ditch, pond, pool vegetation. Gill-breathing, herbivorous (from Latin herba, “grass” and vorō, “I devour”), little fish-like, swimming mountain chorus tadpoles moved out of their eggs four to five days later. Tadpoles need algae, organic debris, plant tissue and suspended matter even as beetles, caterpillars, crickets, flies, mosquitoes, moths, pillbugs, sowbugs, spiders, stinkbugs and worms nourish adults.

North American mountain chorus frog habitats offer season-coldest temperatures, northward to southward, from minus 15 to 15 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 26 to minus 9.4 degrees Celsius).

Mountain chorus tadpoles present average, mature 30-millimeter (1.2-inch) body lengths before they pass into immature phases as mountain chorus froglets with average 8-millimeter (0.3-inch) body lengths.

Lang Elliott, Carl Gerhardt and Carlos Davidson quantify 1- to 1.5-inch (2.54- to 3.81-centimeter) snout-vent (excrementary opening) lengths in The Frogs and Toads of North America. Adult mountain chorus frogs reveal brown, gray-brown-olive bodies with dark-masked, gold-rimmed eyes; white-banded, white-lined upper lips; spring peeper-like backs; yellow leg undersides; and small toe pads. Two advertisement calls per second with upslurred endings sound like harsh, raspy rrrack-rrrack-rrrack-rrrack-rrrack trills similarizing non-overlapping Brimley's chorus frog rrrack-rrrrack-rrrack-rrrack-rrrack and overlapping squirrel treefrog rrraak-rrraak-rrraak-rrraak-rrraak trills.

North American habitats tender Appalachian-thronging, brown-gray-olive-bodied, trill-slurring, white upper-lipped mountain chorus frogs with dark-masked eyes; plain, spring peeper-like broken-striped or marked backs; and yellow under-sided legs.

range map for mountain chorus frog (Pseudacris brachyphona): National Amphibian Atlas, Public Domain, via U.S. Geological Survey Patuxent Wildlife Research Center

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

mountain chorus frog (Pseudacris brachyphona); Franklin County, south central Tennessee: Brad Michael "Bones" Glorioso/USGS National Wetlands Research Center, Public Domain, via USGS Amphibian Research and Monitoring Initiative (ARMI) @ https://armi.usgs.gov/gallery/result.php?search=Pseudacris+brachyphona

range map for mountain chorus frog (Pseudacris brachyphona): National Amphibian Atlas, Public Domain, via U.S. Geological Survey Patuxent Wildlife Research Center @ https://www.pwrc.usgs.gov:8080/mapserver/naa/

For further information:

Beane, Jeffrey C.; Alvin L. Braswell; Joseph C. Mitchell; William M. Palmer; and Julian R. Harrison III. 2010. "Mountain Chorus Frog Pseudacris brachyphona." Page 135. In: Amphibians and Reptiles of the Carolinas and Virginia. With contributions by Bernard S. Martof and Joseph R. Bailey. Second Edition, Revised and Updated. Chapel Hill NC: The University of North Carolina.

Cope, E.D. (Edward Drinker). 1889. "C. feriarum brachyphonus." The Batrachia of North America. Bulletin of the United States National Museum, no. 34: 341. Washington DC: Government Printing Office.
Available @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/32367988

Elliott, Lang; Gerhardt, Carl; and Davidson, Carlos. 2009. "Mountain Chorus Frog." Pages 102-103. In: The Frogs and Toads of North America: A Comprehensive Guide to Their Identification, Behavior and Calls. Boston MA; New York NY: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Frost, Darrel. "Pseudacris brachyphona (Cope, 1889)." American Museum of Natural History > Our Research > Vertebrate Zoology > Herpetology > Amphibians Species of the World Database.
Available @ http://research.amnh.org/vz/herpetology/amphibia/index.php//Amphibia/Anura/Hylidae/Acridinae/Pseudacris/Pseudacris-brachyphona

"The 2012 USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map." The National Gardening Association > Gardening Tools > Learning Library USDA Hardiness Zone > USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map.
Available @ https://garden.org/nga/zipzone/2012/