Earth and Space News: North American Eastern Cricket Frog Habitats Are Grassy, Open, Shallow

Summary: North American eastern cricket frog habitats are grassy, open, shallow waters from South Dakota south through Mexico and east to New York through Florida.

northern cricket frog subspecies eastern cricket frog (Acris crepitans crepitans); "A Northern Cricket Frog scouts lunch in the marsh at Mason Neck;" Mason Neck State Park, Fairfax County, Northern Virginia; Saturday, July 12, 2014: Virginia State Parks (vastateparksstaff), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr

North American eastern cricket frog habitats are grassy, open, shallow waters from South Dakota southward through Texas and into Mexico and eastward from Atlantic coastal New York through Florida and everywhere between.

North American eastern cricket frogs bear their common name as the eastern-borne, first-named, nominate subspecies Acris crepitans crepitans to the northern cricket frog species Acris crepitans. First-named subspecies and the second-named, Acris crepitans paludicola (from Greek ἀκρίς, [locust] and Latin crepitāns [“rattling”], palūs [“swamp”] and -cola [“inhabitant”]), communicate compactness, sounds and whereabouts. Taxonomic designations of the northern species and its eastern subspecies derive from the scientific descriptions of Spencer Fullerton Baird (Feb. 3, 1823-Aug. 19, 1887) in 1854.

William Leslie Burger (1925-1988), Hobart Muir Smith (Sep. 26, 1912-March 4, 2013) and Philip Wayne Smith (Dec. 2, 1921-Oct. 11, 1986) in 1949 examined paludicola subspecies.

Eastern cricket frogs favor South Dakota, Nebraska, Colorado, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Texas and northeasternmost Mexico eastward even as coastal subspecies favor northeasternmost Texas and southwesternmost Louisiana.

Four-month to 5-year life cycles guard as breeding-season months April through August in grass-edged ditches, marshes and ponds in one northeasternmost Mexican province and 31 states. The Hylidae (from Greek ύλη, “forest” via Latin Hylas and -ειδής, “-like” via Latin -idae) tree-frog family member, without any toe pads, hones 30-foot (9.14-meter) jumps. One- to one-plus-year-old physically and sexually mature females install their 400-egg clutches singly or in 2- to 7-egg intervals on shallow-water floors or shallow-water plant stems.

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

The Anura (from Greek ἀν-, “not” and οὐρά, “tail” via ανοὐρά) short-bodied, tail-less amphibian order member knows 3- to 4-day hatching times for their spring-summer egg-laying.

North American eastern cricket frogs live as black tail-tipped, fish-like, gill-breathing, herbivorous (from Latin herba, “grass” and vorō, “I devour”) tadpoles for 5 to 7 weeks. They manifest maximum 0.6-inch- (14-millimeter-) long bodies when they metamorphose from swimming tadpoles to leaping, lung-breathing carnivores (from Latin carō, “flesh, meat” and vorō, “I devour”). Tadpoles need algae, organic debris, plant tissue and suspended matter even as such 0.5- to 1.5-inch- (13- to 38-millimeter-) long aquatic insects as mosquitoes nourish adults.

North American eastern cricket frog habitats offer season's coldest temperatures, north to southward, from minus 45 to 40 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 42.8 to 4.4 degrees Celsius).

Black basses (Micropterus spp), bullfrogs (Lithobates/Rana catesbeianus), grackles (Cassidix mexicanus), kestrels (Falco sparverius), garter (Thamnophis sirtalis) and water (Nerodia paucimaculata, Nerodia sipedon) snakes predatorize cricket frogs.

Lang Elliott, Carl Gerhardt and Carlos Davidson quantify 0.625- to 1.625-inch (1.5875- to 4.1275-centimeter) snout-vent (excrementary opening) lengths in The Frogs and Toads of North America. Brown-, gray-, green-, wart-bodied adults reveal one dark triangle between dark eyes; green-, orange-, red-, yellow-striped backs; narrow-, upper-banded thighs with lengthwise-, ragged-, striped rear edges. Advertisement calls sound like striking two small stones into serial gik-gik-gik-gik clicks that speed up and slow down, unlike the steady giik of southern cricket frogs.

North American eastern cricket frog habitats team cricket-like leaps and stone-striking-like clicks with triangle-marked faces; brown-gray-green, warty bodies; large-spotted sides; striped backs and banded, striped thighs.

Saturday, Nov. 17, 2012, range map of geographic distribution of Northern Cricket Frog Acris crepitans, with range data from Geoffrey Hammerson, Georgina Santos-Barrera, Don Church 2004. Acris crepitans. In: IUCN 2012. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2012.2. www.iucnredlist.org. Downloaded on 11 November 2012, @ https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/76508845/53951510: IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, species assessors and the authors of the spatial data, CC BY SA 3.0 Unported, via Wikimedia Commons

Acknowledgment

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

Image credits:

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Earth and Space News

Friday, October 22, 2010

North American Eastern Cricket Frog Habitats Are Grassy, Open, Shallow

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