Cricket-Chirping, Side-Striped, White-Bellied Little Grass Frogs

Summary: North American little grass frog habitats get cricket-chirping, side-striped, southern coastal plain-colored, white-bellied bodies with gold-rimmed eyes.

little grass frog (Pseudacris ocularis); Big Cypress National Preserve, Collier County, Florida: Hardin Waddle/USGS National Wetlands Research Center, Public Domain, via USGS Amphibian Research and Monitoring Initiative

North American little grass frog habitats access southeastern coastal plain distribution ranges in eastern North Carolina and South Carolina, southern Georgia and panhandle and peninsular Florida and in southeasternmost Alabama and Virginia.

Little grass frogs bear their common name as North America's smallest frog, for grasslike and grassy habitats and for hylid membership in the Hylidae frog family. Their scientific name Pseudacris ocularis (false locust [with] eye [stripes]) communicates little grass frog hylid relationships with chorus frogs, cricket frogs and temperate and tropical treefrogs. Scientific designations defer to descriptions in 1801 by Louis Augustin Guillaume Bosc (Jan. 29, 1759-July 10, 1828) and François Marie Daudin (Aug. 29, 1776-Nov. 30, 1803).

Little grass frog life cycles expect grass, sedge and sphagnum moss along pond edges and in bogs, cypress swamps, roadside ditches, temporary pools and wet depressions.

January through September from Virginia to Alabama, and though December in Florida, flourish as little grass frog breeding season months despite owls, salamanders, snakes and spiders.

Sticky, tiny toe pads get little grass frogs over bare and covered ground, 4.92 feet (1.5 meters) into bushes, shrubs, trees and vines and under logs. Matched filtering hones species-specific call frequencies into species-specific frequency vibrations for dual circular tympanic-membraned eardrums and inner-ear amphibian and basilar papillae despite background and mixed-species noise. Lung expirations impel air streams over vocal cords to inflate vocal sacs and initiate closed-mouth, closed-nostril, rainstorm-triggered advertisement, anti-competitor aggression, anti-contact release, courtship and rain calls.

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

One hundred to 200-egg clutches single-laid or 25-plus-egg-clustered, and, within 3.5 to five days, gill-breathing, keel-tailed tadpoles keep to water whereas adults know land and water.

North America's littlest frogs look like herbivorous (plant-eating) fish and like little-legged, long-tailed, 0.28- to 0.35-inch (7- to 9-millimeter) carnivores (flesh-eaters) 45 to 70 days later. Axillary amplexus (armpit embrace) moves the male's forelimbs behind his mate's front legs while mounting atop her back to fertilize her sediment- and vegetation-sticking eggs externally. Unlike algae-, organic matter-eating tadpoles, adults need ants, beetles, caddisflies, craneflies, crickets, flies, grasshoppers, mites, mosquitoes, moths, pillbugs, sowbugs, spiders, springtails, stinkbugs, termites, wasps and worms.

North American little grass frog habitats offer season's coldest temperatures, northward to southward, from 0 to 30 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 17.77 to minus 1.11 degrees Celsius).

Coastal plain grass-, sedge-, sphagnum moss-filled broadleaf, conifer and mixed forests, everglades, pine flatwoods, river swamps, rocklands, sand pine scrublands and savannahs promote little grass frogs.

Lang Elliott, Carl Gerhardt and Carlos Davidson quantify 0.44- to 0.69-inch (11.11- to 17.46-centimeter) snout-vent (excrementary opening) lengths in The Frogs and Toads of North America. Adults reveal brown, reddish or tan bodies with one stripe running sideways through each snout tip, day-active, gold-rimmed, round-pupiled eye and hind-limb and with white underparts. North America's highest-pitched advertisement calls, at about 5 to 6 kiloHerz (kHz), sound like trills succeeding brief introductory notes, for one cricket-like pt-zeee chirp per second.

Crickety chirps from dark-, side-striped, tiny, white-bellied brown-red-tan bodies tell little grass frogs from other southern coastal plain anurans in North American little grass frog habitats.

A U.S. nickel affords plenty of resting space for North America's smallest frog, an adult little grass frog (Pseudacris ocularis); Big Cypress National Preserve, Collier County, Florida: Hardin Waddle/USGS National Wetlands Research Center, Public Domain, via USGS Amphibian Research and Monitoring Initiative

Acknowledgment

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

Image credits:

little grass frog (Pseudacris ocularis); Big Cypress National Preserve, Collier County, Florida: Hardin Waddle/USGS National Wetlands Research Center, Public Domain, via USGS Amphibian Research and Monitoring Initiative @ https://armi.usgs.gov/gallery/result.php?search=Pseudacris+ocularis

A U.S. nickel affords plenty of resting space for North America's smallest frog, an adult little grass frog (Pseudacris ocularis); Big Cypress National Preserve, Collier County, Florida: Hardin Waddle/USGS National Wetlands Research Center, Public Domain, via USGS Amphibian Research and Monitoring Initiative @ https://armi.usgs.gov/gallery/result.php?search=Pseudacris+ocularis

For further information:

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. "Pseudacris ocularis (Holbrook, 1838)." 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/Acridinae/Pseudacris/Pseudacris-ocularis

Holbrook, John Edwards. 1838. "Hylodes ocularis." North American Herpetology; Or, A Description of the Reptiles Inhabiting the United States. Vol. III: 79-80. Philadelphia PA: J. Dobson.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/3683066

Sonnini, C.S. (Charles-Nicolas-Sigisbert); and P.A. (Pierre André) Latreille. 1801. "La raine oculaire, Hyla ocularis." Histoire Naturelle des Reptiles, Avec Figures Dessinées d'après Nature. Tome II: 186-187. Première Partie, Quadrupèdes et Bipèdes Ovipares. Paris, France: Imprimerie de Crapelet chez Deterville, An X (September 1801-September 1802).
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/3695763
Available via Internet Archive @ https://archive.org/stream/histoirenaturell02sonn#page/187/mode/1up

"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/