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

Dryophytes versicolor (LeConte, 1825)

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Hylidae > Subfamily: Hylinae > Genus: Dryophytes > Species: Dryophytes versicolor

Hyla verrucosa Daudin in Sonnini de Manoncourt and Latreille, 1801 "An. X", Hist. Nat. Rept., 2: 186. Holotype: MNHNP according to the original publication, and presumably that figured on pl. 4, fig. 1 of Daudin, 1802 "An. XI", Hist. Nat. Rain. Gren. Crap., Quarto: adjacent to page 20. Type locality: Unknown. Considered a possible senior synonym of Hyla versicolor by Boulenger, 1882, Cat. Batr. Sal. Coll. Brit. Mus., Ed. 2: 372.

Calamita verrucosus — Merrem, 1820, Tent. Syst. Amph.: 172.

Hyla versicolor LeConte, 1825, Ann. Lyc. Nat. Hist. New York, 1: 281. Type(s): Not designated; likely originally deposited in ANSP or USNM or Philadelphia Mus., now presumed lost; AMNH 84483 designated neotype by Smith, Fitzgerald, and Guillette, 1992, Bull. Zool. Nomencl., 49: 152, and Opinion 1716, Anonymous, 1993, Bull. Zool. Nomencl., 50: 94. Type locality: "Northern States"; restricted to "vicinity of New York, New York", USA, by Schmidt, 1953, Check List N. Am. Amph. Rept., Ed. 6: 73. Neotype is from "Alpine, Bergen County, New Jersey", USA. Placed on the Official List of Specific Names in Zoology by Opinion 1716, Anonymous, 1993, Bull. Zool. Nomencl., 50: 94.

Dendrohyas versicolor — Tschudi, 1838, Classif. Batr.: 33, 75.

Dryophytes versicolor — Fitzinger, 1843, Syst. Rept.: 31.

Hyla richardii Baird, 1854, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, 7: 60. Holotype: Not stated; MCZ 2128, according to Barbour and Loveridge, 1929, Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., 69: 280. Type locality: "Cambridge, [Essex County,] Massachusetts", USA. Synonymy by Cope, 1889, Bull. U.S. Natl. Mus., 34: 373. Fouquette and Dubois, 2014, Checklist N.A. Amph. Rept.: 339, cite the original publication as 1856 in error; see Fox, 1913, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, Index, 1812–1912: vii–xiv.

Hyla versicolor phaeocrypta Cope, 1889, Bull. U.S. Natl. Mus., 34: 375. Holotype: USNM 12074 by original designation. Type locality: "Mount Carmel, [Wabash County,] Ill[inois].", USA. Synonymy by Viosca, 1928, Proc. Biol. Soc. Washington, 41: 89; Smith, 1953, Herpetologica, 9: 169. Considered a senior synonym of Hyla avivoca by Mittleman, 1945, Copeia, 1945: 31.

Hyla versicolor versicolor — Cope, 1889, Bull. U.S. Natl. Mus., 34: 375.

Hyla phaeocrypta phaeocrypta — Neill, 1948, Herpetologica, 4: 175.

Hyla (Dryophytes) versicolor — Fouquette and Dubois, 2014, Checklist N.A. Amph. Rept.: 338.

Dryophytes versicolor — Duellman, Marion, and Hedges, 2016, Zootaxa, 4104: 23.

English Names

Northern Tree-toad (De Kay, 1842, Zool. New York, 1(3): 71).

Changeable Tree-toad (Wood, 1863, Illust. Nat. Hist., 3: 171).

Chameleon Hyla (Yarrow, 1882, Bull. U.S. Natl. Mus., 24: 24).

Chameleon Tree Frog (Hay, 1892, Annu. Rep. Dept. Geol. Nat. Res. Indiana for 1891: 464; Strecker, 1915, Baylor Univ. Bull., 18: 49).

Common Tree Toad (Storer, 1840, Boston J. Nat. Hist., 3: 48; Jordan, 1878, Man. Vert. North. U.S., Ed. 2: 189; Davis and Rice, 1883, Bull. Chicago Acad. Sci., 1: 28; Fowler, 1907, Annu. Rep. N.J. State Mus. for 1906: 112).

Common Tree Frog (Rhoads, 1895, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, 47: 405; Dickerson, 1906, The Frog Book: 117; Brimley, 1907, J. Elisha Mitchell Sci. Soc., 23: 158; Wright and Wright, 1933, Handb. Frogs Toads U.S. Canada: x; Carr, 1940, Univ. Florida Biol. Sci. Ser., 3: 61).

Dusky Tree Toad (Wright and Wright, 1933, Handb. Frogs Toads U.S. Canada: x).

Rain Toad (Stejneger and Barbour, 1933, Check List N. Am. Amph. Rept., Ed. 3: 36).

Eastern Common Tree Frog (Viosca, 1949, Pop. Sci. Bull., Louisiana Acad. Sci., 1: 10).

Gray Tree Frog (Schmidt, 1953, Check List N. Am. Amph. Rept., Ed. 6: 73).

Eastern Gray Treefrog (Conant, Cagle, Goin, Lowe, Neill, Netting, Schmidt, Shaw, Stebbins, and Bogert, 1956, Copeia, 1956: 176; Collins and Taggart, 2009, Standard Common Curr. Sci. Names N. Am. Amph. Turtles Rept. Crocodil., ed. 6: 7).

Gray Treefrog (Conant, Cagle, Goin, Lowe, Neill, Netting, Schmidt, Shaw, Stebbins, and Bogert, 1956, Copeia, 1956: 176; Collins, Huheey, Knight, and Smith, 1978, Herpetol. Circ., 7: 11; Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 58; Collins, 1997, Herpetol. Circ., 25: 12; Crother, Boundy, Campbell, de Queiroz, Frost, Highton, Iverson, Meylan, Reeder, Seidel, Sites, Taggart, Tilley, and Wake, 2001 "2000", Herpetol. Circ., 29: 10; Frost, McDiarmid, and Mendelson, 2008, in Crother (ed.), Herpetol. Circ., 37: 6; Frost, McDiarmid, Mendelson, and Green, 2012, in Crother (ed.), Herpetol. Circ., 39: 15; Frost, Lemmon, McDiarmid, and Mendelson, 2017, in Crother (ed.), Herpetol. Circ., 43: 12).

Distribution

Eastern Texas north and northeast to Minnesota and Virginia and thence to southeastern Tennessee, northern Kentucky and central Virginia to Maine and in Canada in southern Quebec, southern Ontario, and southern Manitoba.

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: Canada, United States of America, United States of America - Arkansas, United States of America - Connecticut, United States of America - Delaware, United States of America - District of Columbia, United States of America - Illinois, United States of America - Indiana, United States of America - Iowa, United States of America - Kansas, United States of America - Kentucky, United States of America - Louisiana, United States of America - Maine, United States of America - Maryland, United States of America - Massachusetts, United States of America - Michigan, United States of America - Minnesota, United States of America - Missouri, United States of America - New Hampshire, United States of America - New Jersey, United States of America - New York, United States of America - North Carolina, United States of America - Ohio, United States of America - Oklahoma, United States of America - Pennsylvania, United States of America - Rhode Island, United States of America - Tennessee, United States of America - Texas, United States of America - Vermont, United States of America - Virginia, United States of America - West Virginia, United States of America - Wisconsin

Comment

In the Hyla versicolor group of Faivovich, Haddad, Garcia, Frost, Campbell, and Wheeler, 2005, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., 294: 102. Hyla versicolor and Hyla chrysoscelis are very similar species which can only be distinguished by call, NOR's, karyotypes, or cell volume. Nominal Hyla versicolor (N=4)is possibly polyphyletic and further work is needed to elucidate the historical components of this complex. The actual range of each species is poorly understood. Ptacek, Gerhardt, and Sage, 1994, Evolution, 48: 898-908, suggested that "Hyla versicolor" is a set of at least three lineages, independently derived from the two lineages of "Hyla chrysoscelis". This view of three independent lineages gained additional support from Espinoza and Noor, 2002, J. Heredity, 93: 81-85. See also evidence for a single origin of Hyla versicolor in Ralin, Romano, and Kilpatrick, 1983, Herpetologica, 39: 212-225, and earlier discussions by Bogart and Wasserman, 1972, Cytogenetics, 11: 7-24, and Ralin and Selander, 1979, Evolution, 33: 595-608. Holloway, Cannatella, Gerhardt, and Hillis, 2006, Am. Nat., 167: E88-E101, provided an analysis that discussed the role of Hyla chrysoscelis and two extinct species in the formation of the tetraploid Hyla versicolor, discussed previous literature and provided a revised range. Thawley and Carlson, 2013, Herpetol. Rev., 44: 621, documented an identification in Centre County, Pennsylvania, USA. Cline, 2005, in Lannoo (ed.), Amph. Declines: 458–461, and Dodd, 2013, Frogs U.S. and Canada, 1: 294–309, provided accounts that summarized the relevant literature and discussed the difficulty of identification between this species and Hyla chrysoscelis. Elliot, Gerhardt, and Davidson, 2009, Frogs and Toads of N. Am.: 62–65, provided an account, photos, and advertisement call. Altig and McDiarmid, 2015, Handb. Larval Amph. US and Canada: 199–201, provided an account of larval morphology and biology. Zhang, Luu, Yu, Zhang, Al-attar, and Storey, 2019, Int. J. Biol. Macromolecules, 132: 461–469, reported on phylogenetic placement and the genetic basis of freezing and anoxia tolerance. Bogart, Burgess, and Fu, 2020, Genome, 63: 547–560, discussed the karyological evolution of this tetraploid species. Bassett, 2023, Reptiles & Amphibians, 30(e18486): 1–18, provided an updated county distribution map for Texas, USA.

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