Northern Cricket Frog Acris crepitans  Baird, 1854
An adult specimen from Bladen County, North Carolina Image © Suzanne L. Collins, 2003
Taxonomic Comments:
Tony Gamble, Peter B. Berendzen, H. Bradley Shaffer, David E. Starkey, Andrew M. Simons (2008. Species limits and phylogeography of North American Cricket Frogs (Acris: Hylidae). Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 48: 112–125), using nucleic and mitochondrial DNA, demonstrated that this taxon was a distinct evolutionary lineage. Standard common name remains Northern Cricket Frog. Tony Gamble, Peter B. Berendzen, H. Bradley Shaffer, David E. Starkey, Andrew M. Simons (2008. Species limits and phylogeography of North American Cricket Frogs (Acris: Hylidae). Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 48: 112–125), using nucleic and mitochondrial DNA, placed Acris crepitans paludicola in the synonymy of A. crepitans. Collins & Taggart (2009 Standard Common and Current Scientific Names for North American Amphibians, Turtles, Reptiles, and Crocodilians. Sixth Edition) submitted for consideration the proposals by Gamble et al. (2008 op. cit.) to an anuran systematist group composed of Rafael de Sa, Julian Faivovich, Tony Gamble, Anna Goebel, S. Blair Hedges, Paul E. Moler, Emily C. Moriarty Lemmon, Gregory Pauly, and Brian K. Sullivan, and a majority of those responding agreed.