Spring Peeper (Pseudacris crucifer) - The Cross-bearing Frog

This little climbing frog was making its way up the glass
panel of one of the doors to my house on a rainy evening
in April.
Photo by Brad Sylvester, copyright 2012.

One of the signature sounds of the New England forest is the evening chorus of spring peepers. Unless one goes traipsing through the woods at night to find the pond or vernal pool from which their spring serenade erupts, however, they can be difficult to find. Unless, that is, they come almost literally knocking on your door as this one did.

As soon as you see the little suction pads on the toes, you might think tree frog, but there are three different New Hampshire frogs that might have feet like this and be agile climbers. The gray tree frog is one, the wood frog another, and the third is the spring peeper.

Tree frogs have a very distinctive dark marking under their eyes that makes them easy to rule out in this case. That leaves the gray tree frog or the spring peeper.

Spring peeper (Pseudacris crucifer) found in my yard on
April 23, 2012.
Photo by Brad Sylvester, copyright 2012.

This frog measures about an inch long and is predominantly brown on the upper side which could fit either species. When we look at the Latin name for spring peeper, however, we get a stronger clue to the identity of this particular specimen. The spring peeper is Pseudacris crucifer in Latin. It's another of those species which has been reclassified in recent years. It was formerly called Hyla crucifer. In any event, it's the crucifer part of the name in which we're interested.

Crucifer translates to cross-bearing. If we look at the back of our little frog we see that it has an elongated "X" or cross pattern. That, along with the frog's other characteristics makes this frog a spring peeper. The X shaped markings on the back of spring peepers vary pretty widely. Some may be an ordinary X, others like our specimen may have a long straight connection in the middle, and on some, one or more of the "legs" of the X may be broken or interrupted (also present in our frog).

Spring peepers are small frogs, measuring between .75 and 1.5 inches in length in resting position (as shown in photos), according to the NH F&G Dept. They can be tan, brown or gray.

A good resource to hear the spring peeper call and that of other North American Frogs is Sounds of North American Frogs (downloadable version from Amazon) or click the image below for the CD version.  


Quick Facts about the Spring Peeper (Pseudacris crucifer):

Diet: The spring peeper is an insectivore subsisting on small insects.

Habitat: Spring peepers live in marshes, ponds, vernal pools, and wet meadows and forests.

When is it here? The spring peeper lives in New Hampshire all year round.

Where does the spring peeper go in winter? The spring peeper hibernates during the winter months. It seeks cover and can be found hibernating under moss, fallen logs, loose tree bark or matted leaves according to NHPTV and the NH F&G Dept.

Reproduction: The spring peeper female lays up to 1000 eggs each spring. Each one is individually attached to plants under the surface of the water (as opposed to the large egg masses laid by some frog species). NHPTV says the eggs take 6-12 days to hatch. My guess is that the range depends mostly upon temperature and possibly oxygen content of the water surrounding them, but that's only my guess. A controlled experiment to determine if this hypothesis is correct could be conducted if eggs from a single batch could be kept in water at varying temperatures and both with and without aeration.

Spring peepers, of course, hatch as small tadpoles. They'll first add hind legs, then front legs as they absorb their tails into their body to become adult frogs. NHPTV says this happens during "late summer." If you are able to track the evening chorus of spring peepers to a particular pond in the evening, you might revisit it throughout the summer to watch the progress of the tadpoles as they develop.

Lifespan: National Geographic estimates the lifespan of the spring peeper at three years in the wild.

Predators - What eats the spring peeper? Although the spring peeper is well camouflaged, many, many different animals will eat them if given the opportunity. A variety of birds from great blue herons to domestic chickens, foxes, raccoons, snakes, large fish, domestic cats and dogs, and many other animals all eat small frogs such as the spring peeper in New England.

Taxonomy of the Spring Peeper:

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Amphibia
Order: Anura
Family: Hylidae
Genus: Pseudacris (formerly Hyla)
Species: Pseudacris crucifer (formerly Hyla crucifer)