North American Carpenter Frog Habitats Are Plant-Filled, Quiet Waters

Summary: North American carpenter frog habitats are plant-filled, quiet waters in marshes, lakes, ponds, pools, rivers, streams and swamps, Maryland to Florida.

carpenter frog (Rana virgatipes), a Virginia State species of concern; Mattaponi Wildlife Management Area, Caroline County, Northern Virginia; Friday, June 29, 2012; Kelly Geer/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Headquarters (USFWS Headquarters), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr

North American carpenter frog habitats are plant-filled, quiet waters in marshes, lakes, ponds, rivers, streams, swamps and temporary pools, Maryland to New Jersey, Delaware, Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia and Florida.

Carpenter frogs bear their common name for bringing up sound pictures of two carpenters banging nails into boards with hammers betraying a slight lack of unison. They carry the scientific names Lithobates virgatipes (from Greek λίθος, “stone” and βάτης, “I tread” and Latin virgatipes, “striped-footed”) and Rana virgatipes (from Latin rāna, “frog”). Edward Drinker Cope (July 28, 1840-April 12, 1897) in 1891 scientifically described the Anura (from Latin an-, “not” and Greek - οὐρά, “tail”) amphibian order member.

The Cope scientific exploration equates carpenter frog environments with the Nymphaea waterlily, Sphagnum moss and Utricularia bladderwort genera and with the Pinus palustris longleaf pine species.

Cranberry, cypress and tupelo species likewise furnish 6-year lifespans, from hatchlings to juveniles, to mature two-year-olds, edible organic debris; plant tissue; small crustaceans, invertebrates and mollusks.

Acid, black gum, blackwater, bottomland and cypress-dome swamps; acidic, beaver and cypress ponds; bays; coastal plains; and cranberry-bog ditches get egg, hatchling, juvenile and mature habitants. Borrow-pit, canal, constructed-pond, drainage-ditch and impoundment artificial wetlands house the Ranidae (from Latin rāna, “frog” and from Greek -ειδής, “-like” via Latin -idæ) true-frog family member. Carpenter frogs inhabit flooded cranberry bogs and seasonal woodland pools; freshwater marshes; grass-like vegetative stands; interdunal cypress swales; low-lying, peat-soil, upland, wooded pocosin and tupelo swamps.

Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis fungal disease, fertilizer runoff, globally warmed climate change, nonnative species, toxic pesticides, trematode fluke-induced deformities and ultraviolet radiation jeopardize North American carpenter frog habitats.

Plant-filled, quiet waters kindle oxbow lakes and ponds; peaty, pine-savanna and sphagnum bogs; pine-barren and pine-savannah ponds; and sandhill-ridge wetlands as North American carpenter frog habitats.

Breeding-season, non-breeding and permanent 0.5- to 6.5-meter (1.64- to 21.32-foot) diameter territories even around sluggish swampland creeks, rivers and streams and swampy plains lodge mature males. April through August mature females maneuver flattened or globular, 75- to 100-millimeter (2.95- to 3.94-inch) diameter masses of 3.8- to 6.9-millimeter (0.15- to 0.27-inch) diameter eggs. Black-topped, blue-tinged, white-bottomed eggs, each one in a 3.8- to 6.9-millimeter (0.15- to 0.37-inch) jelly envelope, need underwater vegetation niched at maximum 30-plus-centimeter (11.81-inch) subsurface depths.

North American carpenter frog habitats offer season's coldest temperatures, north to southward, from minus 5 to 25 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 20.55 to minus 3.9 degrees Celsius).

Week-long eggs precipitate year-long tadpoles that produce 23- to 31-millimeter- (0.9- to 1.2-inch-) long froglets that permanentize as 42- to 67-millimeter- (1.5- to 2.5-inch-) long frogs.

Carpenter frogs quarter dark spots between, and brown, olive or red-brown bodies under, one brown-yellow, jaw-to-groin stripe per side and one brown-yellow, eye-to-hind-leg stripe per upper-side. The belly region of carpenter frog undersides and thigh rears respectively reveal black-mottled whiteness and alternating dark and light stripes even as upper lips remain light-lined. Carpenter frogs shelter no dorsolateral (from Latin dorsum [“back”], latus [“flank, side”] and intensification- and relationship-creating adjectival suffix -ālis [“-al”] via laterālis) folds or longest-toe webbing.

North American carpenter frog habitats transmit the asynchronous, carpenter-like, doubled, nail-driving, rapping, sharp notes c-tuck, c-tuck, c-tuck, c-tuck of advertisement calls from carpenter frogs’ vocal sacs.

range map for carpenter frog (Rana virgatipes; Lithobates virgatipes): 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:

carpenter frog (Rana virgatipes), a Virginia State species of concern; Mattaponi Wildlife Management Area, Caroline County, Northern Virginia; Friday, June 29, 2012; Kelly Geer/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Headquarters (USFWS Headquarters), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/usfwshq/7468020198/

range map for carpenter frog (Rana virgatipes; Lithobates virgatipes): National Amphibian Atlas, Public Domain, via U.S. Geological Survey Patuxent Wildlife Research Center @ https://www.pwrc.usgs.gov:8080/mapserver/naa/

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