## River Frog - Rana hecksheri

- Diagnostic Features:
  - Size: 3 to 5.25 inches (80 to 135 mm)
  - Color:
    - Varies from Gray to Greenish Black to Dark Brown
  - Other:
    - Large frog
    - Conspicuous light spots on lips
    - Skin often rugose
    - Ventral surfaces medium to dark gray marked with light spots or short wavy lines; usually a pale girdle outlining groin
    - No dorsolateral folds or ridges
    - Young frogs with reddish eyes
- Natural History:
  - Habitat:
    - A frog of river swamps and swampy shores of ponds and bayous.
  - Behavior:
    - It is nocturnal. This frog is easy to approach.
  - Breeding:
    - Breeding takes place from April to August
    - Eggs thought to be deposited as a surface film
- Voice: Sonogram : Call ( Tattnall County )
  - Deep sonorous rolling snore; also a territorial snarling, explosive grunt
- Tadpoles:
  - Tadpole stage: probably 2 years
  - Tadpole size: up to 97 mm
  - Transformed size: 30 - 52 mm
  - tadpole larger, 25-110 TL; body grayish with finely freckled pattern, perhaps caused by integumentary glands; prominent to faint (fades as tadpole grows but usually visible) transverse golden band at mid-body; fins appear opaque white with intense black along entire margin (tail pattern persists in preservative); body somewhat depressed and fin with low arch; lentic and slow-flowing lotic sites, often in swamps, from southern North Carolina to southeastern Mississippi
  - high contrast yellow band at mid-body on black ground color; band fades with age but persists throughout ontogeny; fins clear and lack black margin of older tadpoles; tail muscle bicolored; summer breeder in lentic and slow-flowing lotic sites in Coastal Plain from southeastern Mississippi to southeastern North Carolina except for southern two-thirds of Florida peninsula
- Range:
  - In North America, this frog is found in the Deep South of the United States from South Carolina to East Texas.
  - In Georgia, it is found in the southern part of the state.

  - In Light Blue: Williamson, Gerald K. & Moulis, Robert A., Distribution of Amphibians and Reptiles in Georgia, Special Publication No. 3, Savannah Science Museum, Inc. Savannah, Georgia, 1994. Museum specimens
  - In Pale Blue: Williamson, Gerald K. & Moulis, Robert A., Distribution of Amphibians and Reptiles in Georgia, Special Publication No. 3, Savannah Science Museum, Inc. Savannah, Georgia, 1994. Literature only, no museum specimens.
  - In Green: Sound Recordings
  - In Yellow: From Both '94 study and Sound Recordings
  - In Magenta: Photograph, not found by '94, may or may not be sound record
  - In Medium Blue: Photograph and in '94 study, may or may not be sound record
  - In Orange: County Record by other Herp Atlas Volunteers
  - In Red: US Distribution from various sources

June 28, 2003 - wwknapp@mindspring.com