''Pseudacris'' (commonly known as the chorus frogs) is a
genus
Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...
of
frog
A frog is any member of a diverse and largely carnivorous group of short-bodied, tailless amphibians composing the order Anura (ανοὐρά, literally ''without tail'' in Ancient Greek). The oldest fossil "proto-frog" ''Triadobatrachus'' is ...
s in the
family
Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...
Hylidae
Hylidae is a wide-ranging family of frogs commonly referred to as "tree frogs and their allies". However, the hylids include a diversity of frog species, many of which do not live in trees, but are terrestrial or semiaquatic.
Taxonomy and ...
found in
North America ranging from the Pacific coastline to the Atlantic.
The name of the genus comes from the
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
''pseudes'' (false) and ''akris'' (
locust
Locusts (derived from the Vulgar Latin ''locusta'', meaning grasshopper) are various species of short-horned grasshoppers in the family Acrididae that have a swarming phase. These insects are usually solitary, but under certain circumstanc ...
), probably a reference to the repeated rasping trill of most chorus frogs, which is similar to that of the
insect
Insects (from Latin ') are pancrustacean hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body ( head, thorax and abdomen), three ...
.
It could also mean ‘false ''
Acris''’, distinguishing it from another frog genus.
Taxonomy
The species in this genus are disputed. Molecular genetic research shows little consistency due to hybridization between species, making taxonomic organization difficult.
The number of
species
In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...
in this genus is controversial, but Frost ''et al.'' list 19 species (all shown here), and
AmphibiaWeb
AmphibiaWeb is an American non-profit website that provides information about amphibians. It is run by a group of universities working with the California Academy of Sciences: San Francisco State University, the University of California, Berkeley ...
lists 17 species (''P. hypochondriaca'' and ''P. sierra'' are not recognized):
Distribution and habitat
Chorus frogs live anywhere in North America from southern Alaska to southern Baja California, and from the Pacific to the Atlantic.
References
External links
*
eb application 2008. Berkeley, California
''Pseudacris'' AmphibiaWeb, available at http://amphibiaweb.org/. (Accessed: Apr 23, 2008).
* taxo
''Pseudacris''at http://www.eol.org.
* Taxo
''Pseudacris''at https://www.itis.gov/index.html. (Accessed: Apr 23, 2008).
* Taxo
''Pseudacris''at http://data.gbif.org/welcome.htm
Hylidae
Amphibians of North America
Taxa named by Leopold Fitzinger
{{Hylidae-stub