Pickerel Frog

Rana palustris Le Conte

Colour.—Brown, with two more or less regular rows of conspicuous squarish spots between the lateral folds, and two irregular rows of smaller spots on each side below the folds. Legs barred or irregularly spotted. A conspicuous light line from muzzle to shoulder. The upper jaw is yellowish, marked with brown; the lower is white, marked with brown. The underparts are white in front, bright orange-yellow posteriorly. The yellow may extend forward along the sides and outward under the arms. (For colouration, see Colour Plate XIII.)

Measurements.—Size medium; male, 2 to 2 1/2 inches; female, 3 to 3 1/2 inches. The legs are long, the distance from thigh to heel equalling the combined lengths of head and body. The ear is smaller than the eye.

Structure.—Two relatively broad, non-elevated folds of skin extending from the eyes backward--the lateral folds. There are four folds of skin on the back between the lateral folds. These are not coloured differently from the surrounding parts, as are the lateral folds. The foot is distinctly webbed, but the webs are deeply indented and two joints of the fourth toe are free.

Range.—The Pickerel Frog is found throughout the eastern part of North America, west to the Great Plains, and north to Hudson's Bay.

Colour.—Brown or olive, obscurely mottled and speckled with light. Many large or small rounded spots on head, back, and sides. There may be four irregular rows of these spots between the lateral folds. The spots usually do not encroach on the lateral folds. There may be yellowish-white outlines around the spots. Ear brown, with a white blotch at its centre. Upper and lower lips coarsely marbled with brown. Legs spotted, or crossed by four dark bars. Much yellow on femur and body where they fold against each other. Underparts white.

Measurements.—Size medium, i.e., length 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 inches. Length of head contained in total length three times. (Fig. 223.) Length of leg to heel equals length forward to eye or nostril. Tibia longer than femur.

Structure.—Skin rough, with elongated warts on back and sides. Lateral folds conspicuous. Tibia ridged lengthwise. No glandular fold along the jaw. A distinct fold over the ear from eye to shoulder. Under and posterior surfaces of femur granulated. Head large; unusually thick through. Muzzle long; space between eyes greater than width of eyelid; nostrils nearer to the end of the muzzle than to the eye; eyes large; ear half to two-thirds size of eye. (Fig. 223 to 225.) Foot with a tarsal fold; webs short (three joints of fourth toe free); inner sole tubercle small, no outer tubercle, tubercles under toe-joints prominent.

Range.—Rana areolata probably occupies the Austroriparian subregion. It is reported from Texas (Hitchcock, Indianola) and Georgia (Riceborough). There is also a record of single specimens having been collected in Indiana and Illinois.

The inner sole tubercle of the foot is small; the outer still smaller. The palm of the hand has well-developed tubercles.

If we go to the meadow for blue flags in May, we are likely to hear the Pickerel Frogs croaking with low voices in the quiet shallows of the meadow brook or of the pond margin near by. The prolonged note is very distinctive. It is well described by saying that it resembles the sound produced in tearing resisting cloth of some sort. The pitch varies with the individual, but is always low. The range is from G to A below middle C.

As we approach the brook, picking our way over the boggy ground with its sedges, sweet white violets and blue flags, many small spotted frogs leap astounding distances on both the near and the far side of the brook, striking the water in a series of successive splashes. The surface of the water is scarcely ruffled, and the frogs are immediately buried in the mud or hidden under shelving bits of moss at the brook's edge. The Pickerel Frogs are even more agile than the Common Leopard Frogs.

The brook and the fields and meadows near make the home of the Pickerel Frogs, and we shall find them here in all sizes, from those one year old and only an inch and a quarter long to large ones that are three inches in length.

There is perhaps no other of our frogs that presents a coat of so brilliant a metallic lustre as the young Pickerel Frog after he has been in bright light for some hours. Shining gold and bronze make up his colour from the tip of his little pointed "nose" to the ends of his long back legs. On the other hand, the young Pickerel Frog just from a cold day's sleep in the mud is so dark that his spots are scarcely discernible.