North American Southern Leopard Frog Habitats: Scarce-Spotted Sides

Summary: North American southern leopard frog habitats get chuckles, grunts and rattles in grasslands, shrublands, wetlands and woodlands.

southern leopard frog (Lithobates sphenocephalus): Brad Michael "Bones" Glorioso/National Wetlands Research Center, Public Domain, via USGS Amphibian Research and Monitoring Initiative (ARMI)

North American southern leopard frog habitats acquire brackish, freshwater, non-Appalachian Mountain, vegetated distribution ranges from New Jersey through Florida, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware and everywhere in-between.

Southern leopard frogs bear their common name for dark-, irregular-, leopard-spotted backs and legs and southern biogeographies overlapping with northern leopard frogs in Illinois and Indiana. The scientific names Lithobates sphenocephalus and Rana sphenocephala carry the respective English equivalents of "wedge shape-headed haunter (climber, treader) of stones" and "frog [with a] wedge-shaped head." Scientific descriptions in 1886 by Edward Drinker Cope (July 28, 1840-April 12, 1897) of the type specimen collected from near St. John's River, Florida, drive taxonomies.

Southern leopard frog life cycles expect brackish and freshwater, shallow wetlands and dense, moist, non-Appalachian Mountain grasslands, shrublands and woodlands with heavy rainfall and warm nights.

March through August northerly and October through August southerly breeding-season months face brown and southern water, northern black and peninsular ribbon snakes; grackles; and water moccasins.

North American southern leopard frogs go in large groups from moist, thick vegetation to freshwater or semi-brackish breeding ditches, lake and stream margins, ponds and swamps. Matched filtering helps them hear, despite mixed-species choruses, by calls having frequency ranges that vibrate two circular tympanic-membraned eardrums and the inner-ear's amphibian and basilar papillae. Closed-mouth, closed-nostril advertisement, similar courtship and rain, aggression and similar release calls involve lung expirations that impel air streams over vocal cords and inflate vocal sacs.

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

Five hundred-egg, 3.5-inch- (90-millimeter-) wide, 1.5-inch- (40-millimeter-) thick clusters and gill-breathing, keel-tailed tadpole hatchlings keep to water whereas legged, lung-breathing, tailless adults know land and water.

North American southern leopard frogs log 2.5- to 2.75-inch (65- to 70-millimeter-) long gill-breathing, keel-tailed tadpoles three months after hatching and then 0.8-inch- (20-millimeter-) long juvenile froglets. The male manages axillary amplexus (armpit embrace) by maintaining forelimbs behind his mate's front legs while mounted on her back to fertilize dark, sticky eggs externally. Tadpoles need algae, organic debris, plant tissue and suspended matter even though beetles, caterpillars, crickets, flies, mosquitoes, moths, pillbugs, sowbugs, spiders, stinkbugs and worms nourish adults.

North American southern leopard frog habitats offer season's coldest temperatures, northward to southward, from minus 10 to 45 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 23.33 to 7.2 degrees Celsius).

Brown and southern water, northern black and peninsular ribbon snakes; great blue herons; grackles; river otters; and water moccasins prey upon North American southern leopard frogs.

Lang Elliott, Carl Gerhardt and Carlos Davidson quantify 2- to 5-inch (5.08- to 12.7-centimeter) snout-vent (excrementary opening) lengths in The Frogs and Toads of North America. Adults reveal dark-spotted brown, brown-gray, brown-green, gray, gray-green or green bodies with light-lined upper lips; brown-gray-green vocal sacs below light-spotted eardrum centers; and unbroken dorso-lateral folds. Advertisement calls sound like 5- to 10-plus-note, guttural, raucous, stuttered chu-h-h-h-huck-chu-h-h-h-huck-chu-h-h-h-huck chuckles sometimes slowed to chu-hu-huck-chu-hu-huck-chu-hu-huck advertisements, sometimes sped to high-pitched rattles, sometimes succeeded by grunts.

North American southern leopard frog habitats transmit chuckles, grunts and rattles from dark-spotted, brown-gray-green bodies with dorso-lateral folds, light-lined lips and vocal sacs below light-spotted eardrum centers.

range map for southern leopard frog (Lithobates sphenocephalus): 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:

southern leopard frog (Lithobates sphenocephalus); Big Thicket National Preserve, Orange County, southeastern Texas: Brad Michael "Bones" Glorioso/National Wetlands Research Center (now 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+sphenocephalus

range map for southern leopard frog (Lithobates sphenocephalus): 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:

Cope, E.D. (Edward Drinker). 1889. "The Batrachia of North America: Rana virescens sphenocephala Cope." Bulletin of the United States National Museum, no. 34: 399-401. Washington DC: Government Printing Office, 1889.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/32368046

Cope, E.D. (Edward Drinker). 1886. "Synomic List of the North American Species of Bufo and Rana, With Descriptions of Some New Species of Batrachia, From Specimens in the National Museum: Rana h. [halecina] sphenocephala Cope." (Read Before the American Philosophical Society, October 1, 1886.). Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, vol. XXIII -- January to December 1886, no. 124 (December 1886): 517. Philadelphia PA: Printed for The Society by M'Calla [McCalla] & Staveley, 1886.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/6899365

Dickerson, Mary C. 1906. "The Southern Leopard Frog Rana sphenocephala Cope." The Frog Book; North American Toads and Frogs With a Study of the Habits and Life Histories of Those of the Northeastern States: 186-188; Color Plate XII. New York NY: Doubleday, Page & Company.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/1184212
Available via Internet Archive @ https://archive.org/stream/frogbooknorthame01dick#page/186/mode/1up

Elliott, Lang; Carl Gerhardt; and Carlos Davidson. 2009. 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. "Lithobates sphenocephalus (Cope, 1886)." 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/Ranidae/Lithobates/Lithobates-sphenocephalus

Harlan, Richard. 1826. "Descriptions of Several New Species of Batracian Reptiles, With Observations on the Larvae of Frogs: Sp. 5. Rana utricularius. (Nobis.)." The American Journal of Science and Arts, vol. X (February 1826): 60-61. New Haven CT: Printed and Published by S. Converse, for the Editor [Benjamin Silliman].
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library (Missouri Botanical Garden) @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/15902315
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library (Smithsonian Institution) @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/30963159

"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/