Western Chorus Frog (Pseudacris triseriata)

Comments

Posted by Corey Raimond on Oct 19, 2010 at 04:06 PM

I looked at the paper. From my understanding of this type of research, depending on what markers you use you can get extremely different results. That in addition with absolutely no current or previous barrier between chorus frogs from eastern vs western Indiana and the fact that chorus frogs from west of that border look the same as ones from east of the border make me take these types of studies with a grain of salt. It is probably one valid way of looking at this messy species complex, but for my personal records I like that I can divide my Wisconsin records into something that makes sense to me. For example the chorus frogs in northern WI are sometimes lime green and have smaller, shorter legs(http://www.naherp.com/viewrecord.php?r_id=17913) - like the ones out west do. To my knowledge no one has ever found a lime green chorus frog in southern WI. I abide more by the "If it ain't broke don't fix it"

PS I heard they are trying to split up even more amphibians like Rana pipiens...

Posted by Christopher Smith on Oct 19, 2010 at 12:56 PM

These species are highly variable and morphology alone is not a good character. I would review the paper (especially Fig. 3).

Posted by Corey Raimond on Oct 19, 2010 at 12:48 PM

I prefer the taxonomy where the ones in northern WI are P. maculata. And the ones in southern WI are P. triseriata. The ones in northern WI are clearly distinctly diferent and appear to be more related to the chorus frogs out west, whereas the ones in southern WI are more like the ones in the east.

Posted by Christopher Smith on Oct 19, 2010 at 12:14 PM

This should be P. maculata. See-

http://www.bio.fsu.edu/chorusfrog/Lemmon%20et%20al%202007a.pdf