Upland Chorus Frog (What Time is it in Nature)

After a long and relatively snowy winter, nothing is more welcome than the first signs of spring!  One of the best signs of spring at Prairie Ridge is one you may hear before you see, the Upland Chorus Frog (Psuedacris feriarum).

Upland Chorus Frogs are members of the frog family Hylidae, which makes them relatives of the tree frogs, cricket frogs, and other chorus frogs.  They exhibit considerable variation in their coloration and patterns, ranging from gray tinged with a little green to reddish-brown.  Most have a dark stripe that runs along the side of their bodies and three stripes or rows of blotchy spots down their backs.  They also sport a triangular spot on the top of their head between their eyes and white upper lips.  If you flip one over, you’ll usually see a cream-colored belly with a sort of granular appearance, though some individuals will display dark spots on their chests as well.

These frogs are one of the earliest frogs we see or hear at Prairie Ridge each year and are known to call to each other in the late winter and early spring, their primary breeding season.  Their call is reminiscent of the sound you make by rubbing your fingers along the teeth of a comb, a sort of repetitive “crrrrreek!” sound.  (You can listen to the call here, courtesy of the Davidson College Herpetology Lab’s awesome Amphibians and Reptiles of North Carolina.)  You can hear the distinctive call of the Upland Chorus Frogs from quite some distance away!  If you’re lucky, you can follow a call to the source and see the frog, but they can be hard to spot.  They’re even harder to spot outside of their breeding season when they are rarely encountered by people.

You’ll find Upland Chorus Frogs alongside ditches with a lot of grass in them, flooded areas, and other temporary waters.  Once they find a suitable place, they will call to attract a mate.  After successfully finding a mate, the pair will enter amplexus, a sort of mating position where the male frog holds onto the female frog, but fertilizes the eggs only after they have been released from the female’s body in a soft mass.  The eggs are typically attached to vegetation and tadpoles take 8-12 weeks to develop into frogs.

Unlike many frogs, Upland Chorus Frogs appear to have adapted well to humans within their range.  They will often take advantage of man-made habitats such as roadside ditches during the breeding season.

There have been several Upland Chorus Frogs calling from the small ponds that have formed throughout Prairie Ridge thanks to our very wet winter.  On your next visit, take a moment to stop and listen for their distinctive calls.  Spring is coming, and the frogs are letting you know!

What Time is it in Nature is a weekly feature highlighting the current plants, animals, and other wildlife at the Museum’s public outdoor facility, Prairie Ridge Ecostation.  Find out more about the natural happenings at Prairie Ridge at our What Time is it in Nature Archive!

(Photo by Jeff Beane)