Blanchard's Cricket FrogAcris blanchardi

Blanchard's Cricket Frog is one of the more common species in our area of Central Texas.  They are found almost anywhere there is permanent water.   Their clicks are one of the typical sounds of a central Texas summer night..
The taxonomy of this frog is currently under review.  It has been known as Acris crepitans, Acris blanchardi, and Acris crepitans blanchardi.

Cricket Frogs are very small frogs.   Adults are usually less than 1 inch in length.  

Blanchard's Cricket Frog (Acris blanchardi)
Refugio County, Texas

These frogs have a large vocal sac that extends from the front of their thoat. 

Blanchard's Cricket Frog (Acris blanchardi)
Real County, Texas

If their breeding calls are successful, they produce small brownish tadpoles.

Blanchard's Cricket Frog (Acris blanchardi) tadpoles
Real County, Texas

The call is a sharp clicking, sounding very much like two small stones or marbles being clicked together.  It generally starts slow and increases in speed as the frog gets "into" the calling process.  Here is a single individual from Atascosa County.

In the spectrogram for the preceding call, you can see the single, sharp clicks increasing in frequency as the frog gets going.

call of the Blanchard's Cricket Frog (Acris blanchardi)

In the following short recording, you can hear a large group of Cricket Frogs calling from a flooded quarry in Fayette County, Texas.

In the spectrogram for this recording, the individual clicks become much harder to distinguish.

call of the Blanchard's Cricket Frog (Acris blanchardi)

Here is a Blanchard's Cricket Frog calling from a creek edge in La Salle County, Texas.

© Chris Harrison 2012