Upland Chorus Frog: Clicking, Dark-Banded, Pale-Lipped Brown-Tan Body

Summary: North American upland chorus frog habitats get clicking, cream-bellied, dark-banded, long-legged, pale-lipped brown-tan bodies with dark gold-rimmed eyes.

upland chorus frog (Pseudacris feriarum); Lancaster County, north central South Carolina: Savannah River Ecology Laboratory (SREL)/John D. Willson, via USGS Amphibian Research and Monitoring Initiative (ARMI)

North American upland chorus frog habitats avoid coastal plain distribution ranges in piedmont Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia.

Upland chorus frogs bear their common name for braving hilly, rolling habitats higher in elevation than southern coastal plain altitudes and belonging to breeding choral groups. Their scientific name Pseudacris feriarum (false locust [with calls for Christmas and New Year] holidays [and] leisure [times]) confirm upland chorus frogs as winter's spring harbingers. The scientific designation draws upon descriptions in 1854 by Spencer Fullerton Baird (Feb. 3, 1823-Aug. 19, 1887), first curator at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.

Upland chorus frog life cycles expect fishless, rainwater-enlarged, shallow, temporary bogs, ponds and pools near nonbreeding niches in flooded grasslands, marshes, river floodplains and wet woodlands.

December through May, and sometimes through August, fulfill upland chorus frog life cycle breeding season requirements despite predatory birds, insects, newts, salamanders, snakes, spiders and turtles.

Small toe pads and tibia (shins) half snout-vent lengths get upland chorus frogs from grassy, woody wetlands to breeding bogs, ditches, lakes, ponds, pools and swamps. Matched filtering helps them to hear, despite mixed-species choruses, species-specific call frequency ranges that vibrate two circular tympanic-membraned eardrums and the inner-ear's amphibian and basilar papillae. Lung expirations impel air streams over vocal cords, inflate vocal sacs and initiate closed-mouth, closed-nostril advertisement, aggression, courtship, rain and release calls, not open-mouthed distress screams.

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

One thousand eggs in 60-egg, sticky clusters for aquatic plants and sticks and, three to four days later, gill-breathing, keel-tailed, little fish-like tadpoles keep to water.

Upland chorus frogs look like herbivorous (plant-eating) fish, little-legged, long-tailed carnivores (flesh-eaters) within 60 days and mature males within 10 months and females within two years. The male manages axillary amplexus (armpit embrace) by maintaining forelimbs behind his mate's front legs while mounted on her back to fertilize brown-gray-green, vegetation-adhering eggs externally. Unlike algae-, debris-, diatom-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 upland chorus frog habitats offer season-coldest temperatures, northward to southward, from minus 15 to 15 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 26.11 to minus 9.44 degrees Celsius).

Blackland prairies, coastal grasslands and cypress-, pine-, sweetgum-, yellow poplar-friendly broadleaf, coniferous, hardwood, lowland, mixed and mountain forests, savannahs, shrublands and woodlands protect upland chorus frogs.

Lang Elliott, Carl Gerhardt and Carlos Davidson quantify 0.75- to 1.25-inch (1.91- to 3.18-centimeter) snout-vent (excrementary opening) lengths in The Frogs and Toads of North America. Adults reveal white-lined upper lips, dark-banded day-active eyes and dark banding from snouts through hind limbs on sometimes broken-, ragged- or straight-striped and spotted brown-tan bodies. Advertisement calls sound like clicking, fast-pulsed, repeated, rising-inflected, smooth, sweeping crrreeeeek trills similar to fingers and thumbs strumming a hair brush's bristles or a comb's teeth.

Clicking, dark-banded, plain, spotted or striped, long-legged brown-tan bodies with cream-colored abdomens, round-pupiled eyes and white-lined upper lips traverse hilly North American upland chorus frog habitats.

American naturalist Spencer Fullerton Baird (Feb. 3, 1823-Aug. 19, 1887) is credited with the first description of upland chorus frog; Jan. 10, 1867, portrait of Spencer Baird by English-born American photographer William Bell (1830-Jan. 28, 1910); Smithsonian Institution Archives, Washington DC: 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:

upland chorus frog (Pseudacris feriarum); Lancaster County, north central South Carolina: Savannah River Ecology Laboratory (SREL)/John D. Willson, via USGS Amphibian Research and Monitoring Initiative (ARMI) @ https://armi.usgs.gov/gallery/result.php?search=Pseudacris+feriarum

American naturalist Spencer Fullerton Baird (Feb. 3, 1823-Aug. 19, 1887) is credited with the first description of upland chorus frog; Jan. 10, 1867, portrait of Spencer Baird by English-born American photographer William Bell (1830-Jan. 28, 1910); Smithsonian Institution Archives, Washington DC: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Portrait_of_Spencer_Fullerton_Baird_-_1867.jpg

For further information:

Baird, Spencer Fullerton. 25 April 1854. "Descriptions of New Genera and Species of North American Frogs: Helocaetes feriarum." Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, vol. VII (1854, 1855): 60. Philadelphia PA: Merrihew & Thompson.
Available via Internet Archive @ https://archive.org/stream/proceedingsofaca07acad#page/60/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. "Pseudacris feriarum (Baird, 1854)." 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-feriarum

Lane, William Coolidge; Nina E. Browne, eds. 1906. A.L.A. Portrait Index: Index to Portraits Contained in Printed Books and Periodicals. Washington DC: Government Printing Office.
Available @ https://archive.org/details/alaportraitinde00lane

Repticon @RepticonReptileShows. 18 February 2013. "1,000,000 points are awarded to Dorian Golej for Pseudacris feriarum or more commonly known as the Upland chorus frog which is a small and secretive species that is difficult to locate, even when it is calling. It prefers moist forest habitats near water and is found from New Jersey to Florida in the eastern United States. Thanks to Sunshine Serpents for the photo!" Facebook.
Available @ https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151454510209656&l=f3d1d1d235

"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/