Say hello to a Blanchard's cricket frog (Acris crepitans)! I caught this little fella (or gal) on March 20th while out exploring a small creek about a mile west of Camden, OH off of St. Rt. 725 in an area I think is unofficially called the Devil's backbone. Blanchard's cricket frog likes shoreline area of ponds, creeks, and rivers with vegetation. This frog species is not very big (about an inch and a half is close to a maximum size) but they are good hoppers, so they can be hard to catch sometimes. The easiest way I can tell this frog is a cricket frog and not a chorus frog or spring peeper is because it has a warty appearance on its back. Another good way to tell a cricket frog is the presence of a dark triangle on the head between the eyes (not very visible in the picture though). Coloration can vary, including green, brown, and gray, with some being brown or gray with splashes of green.
Blanchard's cricket frogs don't start calling until the end of April and end calling around July, so I was a little bit surprised to have caught this frog so early. It had been a warm and sunny day so maybe this frog was just enjoying the weather by taking a stroll, perhaps in search of good breeding habitat or food. Their calls have been described as a metallic clicking, or even as a marble dropped onto a hard floor. A female will lay up to 400 eggs but deposits them in small groups of 1 to 7. Tadpoles will metamorphose about a month after hatching.
I don't like to end on a sad note, but the Blanchard's cricket frog is thought to be declining in Ohio. The species occurred historically in all the western half of the state, but now their eastern boundary seems to be shrinking.
(Posted by Paula Cimprich)
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