Print | Bookmark

Pickerel Frog

Rana palustris LeConte

Pickerel Frogs are spotted, but with irregular rectangular brown spots in rows. This is the main way to tell them from Leopard Frogs, which have black oval spots. The basic colour is yellow-brown with orange on the groin and the underside of the back legs. Pickerel frogs are especially common along streams and lake shores near inlets and outlets. They also forage along grassy-sedge woods roads, roadsides, meadows and old fields. They are often found associated with Mink Frogs in vegetated water habitats and with Northern Leopard Frogs in land habitats.

Pickerel frogs emerge from hibernation in spring and breed throughout May. The male's call is a short low-pitched snore which does not carry far. Females produce a globular mass of about 1000 eggs attached to plants about 10 cm below the surface. These egg masses are not seen very often. The tadpoles mature rapidly and transform into frogs during August and early September. Adults hibernate under the bottom debris and silt of their aquatic habitats.

Pickerel Frogs eat ants, spiders, bugs, beetles, sawfly larvae, moth larva and a variety of other invertebrates.

Additional Facts and Details

The family Ranidae of typical frogs consists of 45 genera and 586 species and is distributed nearly worldwide.

The genus Rana is represented in the Maritimes by 6 species in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, while 3 occur on Prince Edward Island.

The toes on the front legs are unwebbed.

Breeding males can be told from females by the swollen base of the thumbs on the forelegs. This is related to the tight holding they do during amplexus.

The total number of square or rectangular spots on the back ranges from 7 to 21.

The orange underside is acquired with age.

Size: 37 newly transformed young measured from 2.5 to 2.9 cm. Adult males, 41 measured, from 4.9 to 6.4 cm. Adult females, 38 measured, from 5.1 to 7.5 cm.

Distribution in Canada: Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, southern Quebec and southern Ontario. In the United States, south to the Carolinas and as far west as Wisconsin and eastern Texas.

In Nova Scotia, Pickerel Frogs are found in all regions of the mainland and Cape Breton.

Earliest spring record is April 5, 1975, an adult female on a wet highway after midnight at Princedale, Annapolis County, along with 5 Yellow-spotted Salamanders, 6 Spring Peepers and 2 Wood Frogs. Busy night.

In 30 years of field work, the Museum herpetologist has seen only two Pickerel Frog egg masses, both at Minard Brook in Queens County.

Latest fall record is October 30, 1935, at East Roman Valley in Guysborough County.