Pine Barrens Treefrog - Hyla andersonii

• Diagnostic Features:
  • Size: 1 to 2 inches (29 to 51 mm)
  • Color:
    • Green with striking striped markings
  • Other:
    • Comparatively small treefrog
    • Back is uniformly green, can darken with mood
    • Lavender stripes bordered with white
    • Considerable orange on hidden surfaces of legs
    • Large toe pads present
• Natural History:
  • Habitat:
    • These frogs are found in brushy areas, often near small hillside seep springs or peat bogs
    • Appear to be frogs of the lowest level of the brush. Crawling on hands and knees is appropriate height to look for them.
    • Sandhills and pine barrens are characteristic in some areas, but not all.
    • They can be using extremely small spring fed pools for breeding, these may or may not have sphagnum
  • Behavior:
    • They are nocturnal and forage in the trees and shrubs.
  • Breeding:
    • Breeding occurs from April to July, depending on the temperature.
    • Each female lays about 500 eggs
    • Eggs are laid singly
• Voice: Sonogram : Call ( Escambia County, Alabama )
  • A nasal quonk-quonk-quonk set repeated at a rate of about 25 times in 20 seconds on warm nights, slower on cooler nights
  • Call sets may be separated by as much as 10 - 15 minutes of silence
  • The immediate group tends to call together, but usually not influenced by more distant groups.
  • Call from low brush & weeds, near, but not necessarily at water. Generally less than 2' up.
  • They respond to played calls or vocal call imitations, more can be found by playing their calls in suitable places
  • Call similar to that of the Green Treefrog but lower in pitch and not audible for so great a distance. Makes only a single type, and more musical call, no squabbling calls typical of Green Treefrogs. Investigate any calls from small groups of "Green Treefrogs" in the area in, or below the fall line. Particularily near small springs or in thick brush.
• Tadpoles:
  • Newly transformed frogs are about 15 mm long
  • 

    

  • LTRF 2/3; narrow midventral gap in marginal papillae absent; eyes lateral; P-3 medium to short, P-2/P-3 > 1.2; east of Mississippi River
  • body mostly lightly pigmented brown, sometimes with golden hue in life; lateral surface of tail muscle with either pale stripe bordered dorsally and ventrally by black or sometimes upper black stripe predominates, and it is sometimes broken into series of blocks or blotches, margins of fins sometimes dark; throat immaculate; P-2/P-3 ca. 2.7; summer breeder in boggy, often small sites with emergent vegetation in three disjunct areas: New Jersey, North and South Carolina, and western panhandle of Florida
• Range:
  • A resident of the swamps, bogs, and brown, acid waters of the New Jersey pine barrens; the pocosins (shrub bogs) and sandhills of the Carolinas and somewhat variable shrubby habitat in the Florida panhandle.
  • South New Jersey; southeast North Carolina and ajacent South Carolina; also in the Florida panhandle and extreme south-central Alabama
  • These have yet to be found in Georgia, but populations on both sides of Georgia and sporadic unconfirmed reports indicate that it's possible they are here. Map below shows most likely zone.

    

  • Pink- Suspected zone in Georgia
  • In Green: Sound Recordings
  • Magenta: Photograph, may or may not be sound record
  • In Red: US Distribution from various sources

May 25, 2008 - wwknapp@mindspring.com