Blanchard's Cricket Frog Acris blanchardi  Harper, 1947
An adult specimen from Missouri Image © Suzanne L. Collins, 2001
Taxonomic Comments:
Malcolm L. McCallum & Stanley E. Trauth [2006 An evaluation of the subspecies Acris crepitans blanchardi (Anura, Hylidae). Zootaxa 1104: 1–21] recommended that the subspecies blanchardi not be recognized. 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 species. Standard common name remains Blanchard's Cricket Frog. Collins & Taggart (2009 Standard Common and Current Scientific Names for North American Amphibians, Turtles, Reptiles, and Crocodilians. Sixth Edition) submitted for consideration the proposal 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.