Search tool	Example of search string in box	What that means to the database
* = "wildcard". Allows a partial letter string to be entered and implies either no or various extension on this letter string	Hyl*	Will find all uses of "Hyl . . ." anywhere in a record: e.g., Hylarana, Hyla, Hylidae, Hylinae, Hylaedactyla.
* = "wildcard". Allows a partial letter string to be entered and implies either no or various extension on this letter string	*Hyla	Will find all uses of ". . . hyla" anywhere in a record: e.g., Hyla, Hylidae, Plectrohyla, Ptychadena hylaea, Adenomera hylaedactyla
	Hyla	Will find all records that contain stand-alone uses of Hyla: e.g., Hyla, Hyla arenicolor
Strings of words without quotation marks	Lithobates pipiens	Interprets this as "Lithobates OR pipiens" so will find the union of all records that contain either "Lithobates" or "pipiens": e.g., Lithobates omiltemanus, Hylorana pipiens
Strings of word with quotation marks	"Lithobates pipiens"	Interprets this as "Lithobates AND pipiens" so will return all records that have the character string "Lithobates pipiens" anywhere within a record: e.g., all members of the Lithobates pipiens complex.
AND statement. Means that the results of the search must include both words held together by an AND	Lithobates AND pipiens	Same as "Lithobates pipiens"
OR statement. Means that the results of the search will all records that have either of the terms held together by an OR	Lithobates OR "Costa Rica"	Recovers all records that contain the word "Lithobates" or "Costa Rica": 402 records inasmuch as this will include all records for the entire amphibian fauna of Costa Rica
Combining Boolean operators within the Basic Search box (AND, OR, NOT, quotation marks)	Lithobates AND "Costa Rica" NOT forreri	Recovers only records that contain the word Lithobates AND "Costa Rica", but excludes any record that contains the word "forreri" in any part of the record: 9 records
Printable HELP file

Search tool	Example of search string in box	What that means to the database
* = "wildcard". Allows a partial letter string to be entered and implies either no or various extension on this letter string	Hyl*	Will find all uses of "Hyl . . ." anywhere in a record: e.g., Hylarana, Hyla, Hylidae, Hylinae, Hylaedactyla.
* = "wildcard". Allows a partial letter string to be entered and implies either no or various extension on this letter string	*Hyla	Will find all uses of ". . . hyla" anywhere in a record: e.g., Hyla, Hylidae, Plectrohyla, Ptychadena hylaea, Adenomera hylaedactyla
Single word	Hyla	Will find all records that contain stand-alone uses of Hyla: e.g., Hyla, Hyla arenicolor
Strings of words without quotation marks	Lithobates pipiens	Interprets this as "Lithobates OR pipiens" so will find the union of all records that contain either "Lithobates" or "pipiens": e.g., Lithobates omiltemanus, Hylorana pipiens
Strings of word with quotation marks	"Lithobates pipiens"	Interprets this as "Lithobates AND pipiens" so will return all records that have the character string "Lithobates pipiens" anywhere within a record: e.g., all members of the Lithobates pipiens complex.
AND statement. Means that the results of the search must include both words held together by an AND	Lithobates AND pipiens	Same as "Lithobates pipiens"
OR statement. Means that the results of the search will all records that have either of the terms held together by an OR	Lithobates OR "Costa Rica"	Recovers all records that contain the word "Lithobates" or "Costa Rica": 402 records inasmuch as this will include all records for the entire amphibian fauna of Costa Rica
Combining Boolean operators within the Basic Search box (AND, OR, NOT, quotation marks)	Lithobates AND "Costa Rica" NOT forreri	Recovers only records that contain the word Lithobates AND "Costa Rica", but excludes any record that contains the word "forreri" in any part of the record: 9 records
Printable HELP file

Lithobates blairi (Mecham, Littlejohn, Oldham, Brown, and Brown, 1973)

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Ranidae > Genus: Lithobates > Species: Lithobates blairi

Rana blairi Mecham, Littlejohn, Oldham, Brown, and Brown, 1973, Occas. Pap. Mus. Texas Tech Univ., 18: 3. Holotype: UMMZ 131690, by original designation. Type locality: "1. 6 km W New Deal, Lubbock Co[unty]., Texas", USA.

Rana (Rana) blairi — Dubois, 1981, Monit. Zool. Ital., N.S., Suppl., 15: 233, by implication; Dubois, 1987 "1986", Alytes, 5: 41, by implication.

Rana (Pantherana) blairi — Dubois, 1992, Bull. Mens. Soc. Linn. Lyon, 61: 332; Yuan, Zhou, Chen, Poyarkov, Chen, Jang-Liaw, Chou, Matzke, Iizuka, Min, Kuzmin, Zhang, Cannatella, Hillis, and Che, 2016, Syst. Biol., 65: 835.

Rana (Novirana, Sierrana, Pantherana, Scurrilirana) blairi — Hillis and Wilcox, 2005, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 34: 305. See Dubois, 2006, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 42: 317-330, Hillis, 2007, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 42: 331–338, and Dubois, 2007, Cladistics, 23: 390–402, for relevant discussion of nomenclature. Invalid name formulation under the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (1999) as discussed by Dubois, 2007, Cladistics, 23: 395.

Rana (Novirana) blairi — Hillis and Wilcox, 2005, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 34: 305. Interpration by Fouquette and Dubois, 2014, Checklist N.A. Amph. Rept.: 405, of the nomenclatural act of Hillis and Wilcox, 2005.

Lithobates blairi — Frost, Grant, Faivovich, Bain, Haas, Haddad, de Sá, Channing, Wilkinson, Donnellan, Raxworthy, Campbell, Blotto, Moler, Drewes, Nussbaum, Lynch, Green, and Wheeler, 2006, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., 297: 369; Che, Pang, Zhao, Wu, Zhao, and Zhang, 2007, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 43: 1–13, by implication.

Lithobates (Lithobates) blairi — Dubois, 2006, C. R. Biol., Paris, 329: 829; Dubois, 2006, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 42: 325.

Rana (Scurrilirana) blairi — Hillis, 2007, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 42: 335–336, by implication.

Rana (Lithobates) blairi — Fouquette and Dubois, 2014, Checklist N.A. Amph. Rept.: 405.

English Names

Plains Leopard Frog (Conant, 1975, Field Guide Rept. Amph. E. Cent. N. Am., Ed. 2: 346; Collins, Huheey, Knight, and Smith, 1978, Herpetol. Circ., 7: 12; Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 106; Collins, 1997, Herpetol. Circ., 25: 13; Crother, Boundy, Campbell, de Queiroz, Frost, Highton, Iverson, Meylan, Reeder, Seidel, Sites, Taggart, Tilley, and Wake, 2001 "2000", Herpetol. Circ., 29: 14; Stebbins, 2003, Field Guide W. Rept. Amph., Ed. 3: 237; Frost, McDiarmid, and Mendelson, 2008, in Crother (ed.), Herpetol. Circ., 37: 7; Collins and Taggart, 2009, Standard Common Curr. Sci. Names N. Am. Amph. Turtles Rept. Crocodil., ed. 6: 8; Frost, McDiarmid, Mendelson, and Green, 2012, in Crother (ed.), Herpetol. Circ., 39: 17; Frost, Lemmon, McDiarmid, and Mendelson, 2017, in Crother (ed.), Herpetol. Circ., 43: 14).

Distribution

Northwestern Indiana west across central and southern plains to southeastern Arkansas, southeastern South Dakota, eastern Colorado, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and central Texas to eastern, central, and southern New Mexico; isolated populations in southeastern Arizona and western Nebraska, USA.

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: United States of America, United States of America - Arizona, United States of America - Arkansas, United States of America - Colorado, United States of America - Illinois, United States of America - Indiana, United States of America - Iowa, United States of America - Kansas, United States of America - Missouri, United States of America - Nebraska, United States of America - New Mexico, United States of America - Oklahoma, United States of America - South Dakota, United States of America - Texas

Endemic: United States of America

Comment

In the subgenus Rana, Rana pipiens subgroup of the Rana pipiens complex as defined by Hillis, Frost, and Wright, 1983, Syst. Zool., 32: 132-143. In the equivalent Rana (Pantherana) pipiens group of Dubois, 1992, Bull. Mens. Soc. Linn. Lyon, 61: 332. Reviewed by Brown, 1992, Cat. Am. Amph. Rept., 536: 1-6. Stebbins, 2003, Field Guide W. Rept. Amph., Ed. 3: 237-238, provided a brief account, figure, and map. Di Candia and Routman, 2007, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 45: 564-575, reported on hybridization and introgression with Lithobates pipiens. Engbrecht, Crawford, and Lannoo, 2009, Herpetol. Rev., 40: 446, provided a record for central Indiana and discussed the range. Korky, 1978, Copeia, 1978: 455-459, reported on larval difference from Lithobates pipiens in Nebraska. Dodd, 2013, Frogs U.S. and Canada, 2 : 472–479, provided an account that summarized relevant literature. Elliot, Gerhardt, and Davidson, 2009, Frogs and Toads of N. Am.: 224–225, provided an account, photos, and advertisement call. Altig and McDiarmid, 2015, Handb. Larval Amph. US and Canada: 224–225, provided an account of larval morphology and biology. Painter, Stuart, Giermakowski, and Pierce, 2017, Western Wildlife, 4: 36, commented on the status and county range in New Mexico, USA. Wu and Burkett, 2021, Herpetol. Rev., 52: 77–78, provided a record from Las Cruces, Doña Ana County, New Mexico, USA. Bassett, 2023, Reptiles & Amphibians, 30(e18486): 1–18, provided an updated county distribution map for Texas, USA.

External links:

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To search the NIH genetic sequence database, see GenBank
For additional information see AmphibiaWeb report
For information on conservation status and distribution see the IUCN Redlist
For information on distribution, habitat, and conservation see the Map of Life
For related information on conservation and images as well as observations see iNaturalist
For access to available specimen data for this species, from over 350 scientific collections, go to Vertnet.