Rana pipiens

via iDigBio · CC BY-NC-SA · via iDigBio. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Also called
- Northern leopard frogPBDB
- Sits inside
- RanaPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Temnospondyli
- Life habit
- amphibiousPBDB, for Temnospondyli
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Temnospondyli
- Environment
- brackish,freshwater,terrestrialPBDB, for Tetrapoda
Time the record covers
At least 12 million years on record.
The record covers at least 12.5 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 16.3 Mya to 0 Mya.
37 occurrences of Rana pipiens on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
37 occurrences- Miocene27%
- Pliocene2%
- Pleistocene69%
- Holocene3%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Found in
8 formations
- Fleming Formation3
- Valentine Formation · Ogallala Group2
- McPherson Formation2
- Ogallala Formation1
- Sappa Formation1
- Wicomico Formation1
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The named rock units Rana pipiens has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 25 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Rana pipiens and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Rana pipiens and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
982 taxa- Thamnophis15 sites
- Nerodia sipedon14 sites
- Odocoileus virginianus12 sites
- Ambystoma tigrinum11 sites
- Eumeces11 sites
- Bufo10 sites
- Bufo woodhousei10 sites
- Ictalurus10 sites
- Microtus pennsylvanicus10 sites
- Coluber constrictor9 sites
- Heterodon platyrhinos9 sites
- Sceloporus undulatus9 sites
- Castor canadensis8 sites
- Equus8 sites
- Meleagris gallopavo8 sites
- Mephitis mephitis8 sites
- Neotoma floridana8 sites
- Ondatra zibethicus8 sites
- Sorex8 sites
- Sorex cinereus8 sites
- Terrapene carolina8 sites
- Thamnophis sirtalis8 sites
- Ursus americanus8 sites
- Amblystoma7 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 37 sites for Rana pipiens, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
32 references- The Hottell Ranch rhino quarries (basal Ogallala: medial Barstovian), Banner County, Nebraska. Part I: Geologic setting, faunal lists, lower vertebrates3
- Eshelman and Hager, 19842
- Amphibians and reptiles from the Gulf Coast Miocene of Texas2
- Herpetofauna of the Sandahl Local fauna (Pleistocene: Illinoian) of Kansas2
- Fossil herpetofauna of the Lisco C Quarries (Pliocene: early Blancan) of Nebraska1
- A late Pleistocene herpetofauna from Bell Cave, Alabama1
- Vertebrate paleontology of the proposed Norden Reservoir Area, Brown, Cherry and Keya Paha counties, Nebraska1
- The fossil herpetofauna (Pleistocene; Irvingtonian) of Hamilton Cave, Pendleton County, West Virginia1
- A Late Quaternary Herpetofauna from Saltville Virginia1
- Guilday, 19841
- The Pleistocene (Kansan) herpetofauna of Trout Cave, West Virginia1
- The Clark's Cave bone deposit and the Late Pleistocene paleoecology of the central Appalachian Mountains of Virginia1
Each of the 37 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. 20 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content1

Picture of Rana pipiens
- Source
- iDigBio
- Credit
- via iDigBio
- Licence
- CC BY-NC-SA
- Commercial use
- the licence does not allow it
No 3D scan of Rana pipiens was found in Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itRana through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Schreber 1782