Southern Cricket Frog (Acris gryllus)
These were the only species I've caught so far on our field trips. I caught the first one at the Caw Caw Interpretive Center, and the second at the Stono Preserve. Both were marsh settings.
Caw Caw Interpretive Center
Stono Preserve
The Southern Cricket Frog has long hind legs and semi-webbed feet. It has a narrow snout, and can be colors of bright green to brown patterning with a defining, characteristic triangle between their eyes. It can commonly be found it virtually any body of freshwater in the lowlands, like marshes, swamps, lakes, streams, ponds, etc. It can also be found a bit upland as well, but is predominantly located in the lowlands.
It is incredibly similar in appearance to the Eastern Cricket Frog Acris crepitans. The best way to differentiate them would first be to look at the webbing of their toes. Southern Cricket Frog's toe webbing is much less extensive compared to the Eastern Cricket frog. Second would be to look at the hind legs. Southern Cricket frogs have much longer hind legs relative to their body then the Eastern Cricket Frog. Another indicator would be location. Eastern Cricket frogs are located much more west and north then the southern, though they do have meshing territories between the two.
2 comments:
Halei, I love the 'v' pattern on its back! Very identifiable, and their calls sound like high-pitched marbles clinking together, one of my favorite frog calls. I recently read an article about their color/polymorphism - I'll link it to this comment if you want to check it out. It talked about how individuals within a population can show different color patterns/variation depending on the specific location they're in. You talked about where A. gryllus can be found, in ponds/streams, it made me think about how they might display different colors for a given population that inhabit an area.
Article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00222933.2020.1842536
Thanks for sharing! It's fun to see their color variation!
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