North American Green Frog Habitats Are Fresh, Permanent Shallow Waters

Summary: North American green frog habitats are fresh, permanent shallow waters in eastern North America, from the Canadian through the Unitedstatesian southeast.

female green frog (Lithobates clamitans): Jeromi Hefner/USGS Wetland and Aquatic Research Center, Public Domain, via USGS Amphibian Research and Monitoring Initiative (ARMI)

North American green frog habitats are fresh, permanent shallow waters from Ontario, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas westward through the Canadian and Unitedstatesian southeast from Atlantic coastal Newfoundland southward through Florida.

Green frogs bear their common name as the brown-marked, bronze-bodied southern subspecies Rana clamitans clamitans and the black or brown-spotted green-brown-bodied northern subspecies Rana clamitans melanota. They carry Rana clamitans species, Rana clamitans clamitans first-named subspecies and Rana clamitans melanota (from Latin rāna [“frog”], clāmitāns [“yelling”]; Greek μέλας [black]) second-named subspecies names. The above-mentioned accepted scientific names defer to anticipated scientific names: Lithobates clamitans, Lithobates clamitans clamitans (from Greek λίθος, “stone” and βάτης, “treader”) and Lithobates clamitans melanota. Pierre André Latreille (Nov. 29, 1762-Feb. 6, 1833) in 1801 effectuated scientific, taxonomic examinations of the green frog species and the nominate, first-named, bronze frog subspecies.

Green frog life cycles expect freshwater, permanent, shallow brooks, lakes, ponds and streams as green-brown-bodied northernern subspecies and small creeks and swamps as bronze-bodied southern subspecies.

Constantine Samuel Rafinesque-Schmaltz (Oct. 22, 1783-Sep. 18, 1840) in 1820 taxonomically furnished the second-named subspecies, the northern green frog (Rana clamitans melanota or Lithobates clamitans melanota).

Green frog life cycles guard freshwater, permanent, shallow brooks, lakes, ponds and streams as brown-green-bodied northern subspecies and small creeks and swamps as bronze-bodied southern subspecies. Six- to 10-year life expectancies herald March through August breeding-season months for physically and sexually mature one-, one-plus-year-old bronze and northern, female and male green frogs. The breeding, egg-laying interval is identical in bronze frog-inhabited Gulf and southeastern coastal plains, northern Florida and Mississippi River drainage northward into southern Missouri and Illinois.

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

The permanent territories of physically and sexually mature male bronze and northern green frogs keep the 3,000-some eggs of each mated female in raft-like surface film.

Herbivorous (from Latin herba, “grass” and vorō, “I devour”) tadpoles leave their eggs 3 to 7 days later to live as fall or fall-winter-spring, gill-breathing swimmers. Aquatic insects, dragonfly larvae, fish, herons, leeches and turtles menace green frog eggs and tadpoles even as maximally 29-centimeter- (11.42-inch-) diameter surface-film foam masquerades the former. 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 green frog habitats offer season's coldest temperatures, north to southward, from minus 45 to 20 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 20.55 to minus 6.66 degrees Celsius).

Herons, humans, large fish, mink, otters, raccoons, snakes, turtles and wading birds predatorize green frogs as metamorphosed froglets and as mature bronze and northern green frogs.

Lang Elliott, Carl Gerhardt and Carlos Davidson quantify 2.25- to 4.25-inch (5.72- to 10.79-centimeter) snout-vent (excrementary opening) lengths in The Frogs and Toads of North America. Adults reveal green-white upper lips, dark-lined, dark-spotted white abdomens, dorsolateral (back and side) folds and, for males, eardrums bigger than gold-rimmed dark eyes and swollen thumbs. Advertisement, territorial and fearful calls respectively sound like explosive, falling-pitched, falling-volumed, loose-plucked banjo string-like, throaty GUNK!-Gunk!-gunk! twangs, like guttural iCUP! stutters and like chirps and squeaks.

North American green frog habitats team gunk! twangs with light-bellied, light-legged bronze-bodied southeasterners and green-brown-bodied northerners with dorsolateral folds, eardrums bigger than eyes and swollen thumbs.

range map for green frog (Lithobates clamitans): U.S. Geological Survey Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center (NPWRC), Public Domain, 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:

female green frog (Lithobates clamitans); Atchafalaya Basin, south central Louisiana: Jeromi Hefner/USGS Wetland and Aquatic Research Center, Public Domain, via USGS Amphibian Research and Monitoring Initiative (ARMI) @ https://armi.usgs.gov/gallery/result.php?search=Lithobates+clamitans

range map for green frog (Lithobates clamitans): U.S. Geological Survey Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center (NPWRC), Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Ran_clam_NA_range.gif

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