Ornate Chorus Frog - Pseudacris ornata

• Diagnostic Features:
  • Size: 1 to 1.5 inches (25 to 38 mm)
  • Color:
    • From almost plain black to silvery white or to brilliant greens or reddish browns
    • The reddish brown coloration is most common
  • Other:
    • Black, masklike stripe running through the eye from nostril to shoulder
    • Dark, triangular spot often present between eyes
    • Dark spots on sides and near groin
    • Yellow in groin
    • Numerous small yellow spots on concealed portions of legs
  • Sexual Dimorphism:
    • ?
• Natural History:
  • Habitat:
    • Cypress ponds, pine barren ponds, flooded meadows, and flatwoods ditches; plus their environs
  • Behavior:
    • ?
  • Breeding:
    • Late fall, winter and early spring, November to March
    • Males often call at or in the water
    • Females deposit small irregular clusters of 10 to 100 eggs on stems or other objects
• Voice: Sonogram : Call ( Taylor County )
  • A series of shrill, loud, birdlike peeps, or like the ring of a steel chisel struck by a hammer, 65 - 80 times a minute
• Tadpoles:
  • Transformed size: 14 - 16 mm
  • 
  • LTRF 2/3; narrow midventral gap in marginal papillae absent; eyes lateral; east of Mississippi River; regardless of size, stage or range, notable colors or patterns in Section 10 absent; P-3 short, P-2/P-3 > 1.8; lateral surface of tail muscle pigmented throughout (even if diffusely), mottled, or graded from dark dorsally to pale ventrally (i.e., not bicolored)
  • LTRF 2/3; narrow midventral gap in marginal papillae absent; eyes lateral; east of Mississippi River regardless of size, stage or range, notable colors or patterns in Section 10 absent; P-3 short, P-2/P-3 > 1.8; lateral surface of tail muscle distinctly bicolored
  • throat not pigmented; small specimens dark with distinctly bicolored tail that becomes less distinctly bicolored with age, older specimens nearly uniformly black or with minor mottling; midventral marginal papillae uniserial; P-2/P-3 ca. 1.9; length of one side of A-2/width of medial gap ca. > 4.0; to 65 TL; lower jaw sheath medium to wide; spring breeder in temporary or permanent forest swamp pools in southeastern Louisiana to North Carolina except for southern two-thirds of Florida peninsula
• Range:
  • In North America, Coastal Plain from North Carolina to eastern Louisiana; souths through much of northern Florida
  • In Georgia, it is found below the fall line.

    

  • In Light Blue: Williamson, Gerald K. & Moulis, Robert A., Distribution of Amphibians and Reptiles in Georgia, Special Publication No. 3, Savannah Science Museum, Inc. Savannah, Georgia, 1994
  • In Green: Sound Recordings
  • In Yellow: From Both '94 study and Sound Recordings
  • In Magenta: Photograph, not found by '94, may or may not be sound record
  • In Medium Blue: Photograph and in '94 study, may or may not be sound record 
  • In Orange: County Record by other Herp Atlas Volunteers
  • In Red: US Distribution from various sources

May 25, 2008 - wwknapp@mindspring.com