Genus Species: Pseudacris streckeri

Size: 1 - 1½”

Location: Found primarily in the Arkansas River Valley

Advertisement Call: Single bell-like note repeated rapidly.  A chorus sounds like a squeaky wheel.

 

Description:

This is the largest of the chorus frogs in Arkansas - notice how stout he looks.  He has several dark blotches on light colored skin and a solid or broken patch from his snout through his eye past his tympanum.  He also has a variable dark spot directly below his eye and he has a single vocal sac.  It prefers the sandy habitats of the river basin.  This frog is named in honor of John K. Strecker (1875-1933), a Texas herpetologist.

Strecker’s Chorus Frog breeds in early spring and the females will lay a few hundred eggs in smaller packets attached to submerged sticks and twigs.  Tadpoles will hatch in five days and gradually lose their tails and gills, grow legs and lungs, and become frogs in two months.  When these frogs are not breeding they are burrowed into the ground.

Interesting Fact: Kermit the Frog may have been born in Leland, Mississippi.  Visit the Jim Henson Birthplace Museum there sometime.

These frogs are members of the Hylidae (Treefrog) family and are New Frogs (Neobatrachia).  There may be a population of Strecker’s Chorus Frogs in the extreme northeast corner of Arkansas.  Some believe it to be a subspecies called Pseudacris streckeri illinoensis (Illinois Chorus Frog).

Click for more about Strecker’s Chorus Frog at Herps of Arkansas.