Natural Highlights: Southern Leopard Frog

In late winter and early spring, during the peak of their breeding season, the manic chuckling calls of Southern Leopard Frogs (Lithobates sphenocephalus) can be heard in our Wolf River wetlands and along the edges of lakes, ponds, swamps and streams throughout the Southeast. These are members of the Ranidae Family, the “true frogs,” with well-known frog traits such as large eardrums, moist skin, and long webbed hind feet. If you had to dissect a frog in high school, it was probably a Southern Leopard Frog, so named because of the large round spots on its back (vs. the squarish spots on the similar-looking Pickerel Frog).  They can also be identified by a pale spot in the center of the large tympanum (eardrum).

Southern Leopard Frogs are medium-sized, reaching lengths of 2.5 to 3.5 inches, occasionally more, and they produce tadpoles which can grow to over 2 inches in length and are able to hold their own in habitats they share with fish, though many of them are consumed by fish and other predators, as are the adult frogs. This species – and all amphibians - thus plays an important ecological role, as a consumer of detritus as a tadpole and mostly terrestrial invertebrates as an adult, and as prey for fish, snakes, birds, mammals and more. Also, like all amphibians, the Southern Leopard Frog depends on good water quality and healthy habitat to thrive.  It is one of many animal and plant species served by the conservation mission of the Wolf River Conservancy.

For more information on Southern Leopard Frogs, use the following links:

https://srelherp.uga.edu/anurans/ransph.htm  

https://ufwildlife.ifas.ufl.edu/frogs/southernleopardfrog.shtml

https://www.tn.gov/twra/wildlife/amphibians/frogs-and-toads/southern-leopard-frog.html

https://www.chesapeakebay.net/discover/field-guide/entry/southern-leopard-frog1