Cope's Gray Treefrog Habitats: Chirpy, Squeaky Weep, Fast, Harsh Trill

Summary: Eastern North American Cope's gray treefrog habitats get chirpy squeaks and fast rattles from gray-green bodies with pale eyespots and yellow underparts.

Cope's gray treefrog (Hyla chrysoscelis) camouflages well, except for flash pattern of yellow-orange patches on hind legs: Brad Michael "Bones" Glorioso, USGS National Wetlands Research Center, Public Domain, via USGS Amphibian Research and Monitoring Initiative (ARMI)

North American Cope's gray treefrog habitats amass forest, grassland and prairie distribution ranges from New Jersey through Florida, Texas, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, Alberta, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and West Virginia and everywhere in-between.

Cope's gray treefrogs bear their common name as a scientist's namesake and for body ground color and day-time breeding, and day-in, day-out nonbreeding, season living quarters. Their scientific name Hyla chrysoscelis (gold-spotted wood [dweller]) communicates Hylidae family membership with chorus and cricket frogs and other treefrogs and confirms characteristic, yellow thigh spots. The scientific designation delves into descriptions in 1880 by Edward Drinker Cope (July 28, 1840-April 12, 1897), American herpetologist (amphibian and reptile specialist) from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Cope's gray treefrog life cycles expect fishless semi-permanent or temporary breeding ponds with bare, forested, grassy, weedy and woody edges for burrowing, foraging, hiding and sheltering.

March through August furnish Cope's gray treefrog life cycles with breeding season months despite the predatory proliferation of birds, giant waterbugs, shrews, snakes and tiger salamanders.

Large, sticky toe pads and long legs get Cope's gray treefrogs to breeding ponds more from bare, grassy, weedy ground than from gray treefrog-favored woody plants. Cope's gray treefrogs hear their calls, despite similar gray treefrog frequencies, through matched filtering for two circular tympanic-membraned eardrums and their inner-ear's amphibian and basilar papillae. Lung expirations impel air streams over vocal cords to inflate vocal sacs and initiate closed-mouth, closed-nostril advertisements, aggression against competitors, courtship, rain and release from contact.

Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis fungus, fertilizer runoff, globally warmed climate change, nonnative species, toxic pesticides, trematode fluke-induced deformities and ultraviolet radiation jeopardize North American Cope's gray treefrog habitats.

One thousand to 2,000 brown-cream-yellow 0.04- to 0.05-inch (1.1- to 1.2-millimeter) eggs in 10- to 40-egg films and 3- to 7-day hatched tadpoles keep to water.

Cope's gray treefrogs look like 1.26- to 1.49-inch (32- to 38-millimeter), herbivorous (plant-eating) fish and little-legged, long-tailed, 1.97-inch (50-millimeter) carnivores (flesh-eaters) 45 to 65 days later. The male manages axillary amplexus (armpit embrace) by maintaining forelimbs behind his mate's front legs while mounted on her back to fertilize brown-cream-yellow, sticky eggs externally. Unlike algae-, organic debris-, plant-eating tadpoles, adults need ants, beetles, caddisflies, craneflies, crickets, flies, grasshoppers, mites, mosquitoes, moths, pillbugs, sowbugs, spiders, stinkbugs, termites, wasps and worms.

North American Cope's gray treefrog habitats offer season-coldest temperatures, northward to southward, from minus 45 to 25 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 42.11 to minus 3.88 degrees Celsius).

Aspen, coastal, conifer, hardwood, highland, lowland and mixed forests, blackland prairies, coastal, forested, mixed and tall grasslands and savannahs and pine barrens promote Cope's gray treefrogs.

Lang Elliott, Carl Gerhardt and Carlos Davidson quantify 1.25- to 2.375-inch (3.18- to 6.03-centimeter) snout-vent (excrementary opening) lengths in The Frogs and Toads of North America. Adults reveal camouflage-, color-, temperature-changing black-, gray-, white-blotched, lined, spotted gray and green rough-skinned bodies, one white spot below each gold-lidded dark eye and yellow-washed underparts. Chirping, squeaky weep calls sound similar to gray treefrog aggression and releases even though rattling trills sound harsh and two times faster than gray treefrog advertisements.

Faster, harsher ground, not woody plant-level, calls and 24, not 48, chromosomes, tell Cope's gray treefrogs from gray treefrogs in North American Cope's gray treefrog habitats.

calling adult male Cope's gray treefrog (Hyla chrysoscelis); Atchafalaya Basin, south central Louisiana: Brad Michael "Bones" Glorioso, USGS National Wetlands Research Center, Public Domain, via USGS Amphibian Research and Monitoring Initiative (ARMI)

Acknowledgment

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

Image credits:

Cope's gray treefrog (Hyla chrysoscelis) camouflages well, except for flash pattern of yellow-orange patches on hind legs: 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=Hyla+chrysoscelis

calling adult male Cope's gray treefrog (Hyla chrysoscelis); Atchafalaya Basin, south central Louisiana: 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=Hyla+chrysoscelis

For further information:

Cope, Edward D. (Drinker). 1880. "On the Zoological Position of Texas: Hyla femoralis Daudin. . . .This is probably a subspecies, and may be distinguished by the name of chrysoscelis." Bulletin of the United States National Museum, no. 17. Washington DC: Government Printing Office.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/7529336

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. "Dryphytes chrysoscelis (Cope, 1880)." 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/Hylinae/Dryophytes/Dryophytes-chrysoscelis

"Hyla chrysoscelis Cope's gray treefrog." Page 459. In: David Burnie and Don E. Wilson. (Eds.) Smithsonian Animal: The Definitive Visual Guide. Revised and Updated. New York NY: DK Publishing, 2011.

"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/