Froggy Find

Find the frog

Our Guest Blogger, Tonya Smith MN sent this to me.

This frog was a pleasant distraction from my yard duties. It was hidden under the mulch surrounding a purple coneflower’s fresh leaves of spring.  I knew if I took my eyes off of it to fetch a container for temporary containment, I would lose sight of it. I used my phone to “catch it.”

Frogs do not adhere to “say cheese on the count of three.”  In this case it was a human and frog hopping match; me attempting to get close enough for a picture adequate for identification.  Mission accomplished!  A picture comparing it to my hand or something else to show its size would have been helpful, but this was one fast frog.

I went to the Missouri Department of Conservation website which has a comprehensive list of field guides. I started with Reptiles and Amphibians. From there I filtered to the subtype Frogs and Toads where there are 23 options. As you can see, Froggy is green but has additional coloring and markings.

I found this frog in the southern part of Missouri. Is it a southern leopard frog?  “The head of the southern leopard frog is long and the snout is pointed. Overall color is green, greenish brown, or light brown with some green on the back. There is usually no dark spot on the snout.  A white line is present along the upper lip.”


Froggy’s overall color is green and that color stuck in my mind the second I first saw it. Froggy has the oblong spots on its back and hind legs. But Froggy doesn’t have a white line along the upper lip.  Do you see a ridge of skin or fold along each side of Froggy’s back?   Based on my comparison there are enough differences for me to move on.

Is it a northern cricket frog? The MDC page says “The northern cricket frog's color is quite variable: gray, tan, greenish tan, or brown. The back may have a irregular green, yellow, orange, or brown stripe. There is always a dark triangle between the eyes, a series of light and dark bars on the upper jaw, and an irregular black or brown stripe along the inside of each thigh. The belly is white.”


Froggy wouldn’t respond to the command “Roll over!” so I couldn’t see the belly.  Since it didn’t follow commands I decided it was a male.

Froggy has variable color with green, tan, and brown. The back has irregular stripes which in Froggy’s case are brown. A zoom in on the jaw line shows a series of light and dark bars. Yes, I know, if I had picked it up, I could have confirmed the belly color, and I didn’t have a good measurement of Froggy’s size.  Always a lesson to be learned.  One marking indicative of the northern cricket frog is a dark triangle between the eyes.  I do not see this on Froggy. There are raised markings that sort of form a triangle in between its eyes. This discrepancy compels me to look again at all 23 of the original choices that I started with. Based on my observations, no other frog has a better match than the northern cricket frog. We sent the triangle question off to Brian Edmond.

Brian said, “Yes, that is a northern or Blanchard's cricket frog (Acris crepitans or A. blanchardi, depending on your source). Same family and size as a spring peeper. They call in the late spring and much of the summer near larger bodies of water, including our Ozark rivers. I haven't heard any calling yet but I've been seeing them for the entire winter season since it was so mild.  There call which you can hear here, is similar to the sound you can make when rapidly knocking two rocks together quickly (chick-chick-chick-chick-chick). This an adult so they never get very big.

They have three characteristics that make them pretty easy to identify in the field. First, they do not usually dive for deep water when you scare them. Instead, they usually hop into the nearest water when startled and immediately swim back to shore, often to the same place they just started. I figure this is probably a behavioral adaptation to living in large bodies of water, where the predators in the water are just as scary as the ones on the land.

Brian marked the triangle

Second, they always (as close to always as you can get in nature, anyway) have a triangle between their eyes that points backwards. I can see it in this photo. Often, you have to hold the frog under water for the pattern to be more clear. Third, they have warty skin but really do not look like a toad.”

Back to Tonya.
One more thought. Is Froggy good bait for a fishing line? Yes, but not under my watch. Once you give an animal a pet name it can’t be harmed.