Pickerel Frog

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This article is about the pickerel frog. For the pickerel fish, see Esox.

Pickerel Frog

Pickerel frog in the White Mountains (New Hampshire)

Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Amphibia
Order:	Anura
Family:	Ranidae
Genus:	Rana
Species:	R. palustris

Binomial name

Rana palustris
LeConte, 1825

Pickerel Frog range

Synonyms

Lithobates palustris

The Pickerel Frog (Rana palustris^[1]^[2]) is a small North American frog, characterized by the appearance of seemingly "hand-drawn" squares on their dorsal surface. All other leopard frogs have circular spots.

The Pickerel Frog is a poisonous frog. It secretes a poison from its skin that can make humans very sick and be fatal to smaller animals

1 Distinguishing features
2 Range
3 Footnotes
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Distinguishing features

The spots of pickerel may blend together to form a long rectangle along the back. In addition, they have prominent dorsolateral ridges that are unbroken. A very distinguishing mark is the orange or yellow coloring found within the hind legs. The frog must be picked up to examine this as the legs cover the coloration otherwise. The Plains Leopard Frog (Lithobates blairi) exhibits this coloration as well, but the dorsolateral ridges are inset medially in this species.

[edit] Range

The pickerel ranges in the west from much of Wisconsin, southeast Minnesota, eastern Iowa, through Missouri and down to eastern Texas. To the east they extend through northern Louisiana, most of Mississippi, northern Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina to the coast. Their northern range extends into Canada in the southern reaches of Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia. The range is spotty through the midwestern states and a field guide should be obtained for the specifics on ranges in a particular area.

[edit] Footnotes

^ Hillis, D. M. 2007. Constraints in naming parts of the Tree of Life. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 42:331-338.
^ Hillis, D. M., and T. P. Wilcox. 2005. Phylogeny of the New World True Frigs (Rana). Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 34:299-314.

[edit] References

Hammerson (2004). Rana palustris. 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN 2006. Retrieved on 09 May 2006. Database entry includes a range map and justification for why this species is of least concern
Redmer, M. and Mierzwa, K.S. (1994). "A review of the distribution and zoogeography of the pickerel frog, Rana palustris, in northern Illinois". Bulletin of the Chicago Herpetological Society 29: 21–30.
Hillis, D.M. & Wilcox, T.P. (2005): Phylogeny of the New World true frogs (Rana). Mol. Phylogenet. Evol. 34(2): 299–314. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2004.10.007 PDF fulltext.
Hillis, D. M. (2007) Constraints in naming parts of the Tree of Life. Mol. Phylogenet. Evol. 42: 331–338.