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Fun Facts
Did You Know?
The taxonomists who named these tiny, non-climbing, super-hopping tree frogs that eat crickets and chirp like crickets nailed it. Cricket frogs, indeed. Acris species are some of the smallest vertebrates in North Louisiana, smaller than every frog found in the area except the Rio Grande chirping frog, and they are named with such straightforward accuracy that there is no ambiguity about what you're looking at or what it sounds like. The cricket frog is a cricket frog. It chirps. It eats crickets, at least in the case of the northern species. The naming committee went home early that day…
If This Animal Could Talk...
"Watch closely, respect my space, and let my habitat explain the rest of the story."
Cricket Frog:Cricket Frog The taxonomists who named these tiny, non-climbing, super-hopping tree frogs that eat crickets and chirp like crickets nailed it. Cricket frogs, indeed.
A Few More Facts
How they hunt and forage: Cricket frogs begin life as cute little herbivores and grow into cute little vicious insectivores. As tadpoles, they eat algae, detritus, and microscopic plant matter, grazing on submerged vegetation and the algae film on rocks and plants with a small mouth optimized for scraping surfaces. Adult northern cricket frogs eat crickets primarily, which is on-brand. Adult southern cricket frogs eat mostly mosquitoes, which is also on-brand and makes them broadly popular in Louisiana from June through October. Both species will take other small insects — flies, beetles, ants, small spiders — but the northern species' primary prey is crickets and the southern species' primary prey is mosquitoes, which is either a pleasing division of labor or a coincidence, depending on your appetite for pattern.
Live birth or eggs? no
When young are born: See the detailed species sections below.
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What Is the Cricket Frog Often Confused With?
Cricket frogs belong to the family Hylidae — the tree frogs — but they are not arboreal. They are ground-dwellers that live at the edges of permanent or semi-permanent water bodies, in vegetation, on mud, on banks, and occasionally in shallow water, but not in trees. The family classification is based on evolutionary relationships and anatomy rather than behavior, and cricket frogs are tree frogs in the same way that humans are apes — technically accurate but behaviorally misleading. Two species in the genus Acris occur in North Louisiana. The northern cricket frog has three subspecies: Blanchard's cricket frog, eastern cricket frog, and coastal cricket frog. The southern cricket frog has two subspecies: Florida cricket frog and coastal plain cricket frog. In North Louisiana you will encounter Blanchard's cricket frog and the eastern cricket frog — both subspecies of the northern cricket frog — and the southern cricket frog. The northern species is slightly larger than the southern, though both are tiny. Adult Blanchard's cricket frogs range from half an inch to an inch and a half long. Eastern cricket frogs grow to between three-quarters of an inch and an inch and a half. Southern cricket frogs range from half an inch to an inch and a quarter. These are measurements that require a ruler, good lighting, and a cooperative frog that is not actively trying to leap away from the measuring process.
Drag the handle left and right to compare Cricket Frog side by side with the species it gets mistaken for most.
Open the visual comparison tool
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Accessibility
Accessibility
Cricket frogs are among the more accessible wildlife subjects in North Louisiana because their calling gives them away before you see them. The rapid clicking from a pond or wetland edge localizes the animals to a specific stretch of bank without requiring any hiking or terrain navigation. From a vehicle on a refuge road in late spring, you can hear cricket frogs calling from the windows. Parking at any pond edge during April or May and sitting quietly will produce frog encounters without leaving the parking area.
For visitors who cannot navigate uneven bank terrain, the paved accessible pier and boardwalk at Black Bayou Lake NWR near Monroe provides elevated access over the kind of cypress-studded shallow water that cricket frogs prefer. The pier puts observers close to the water's edge without requiring descent onto muddy banks.
For visitors who are blind or have low vision, the cricket frog's call is a better locating tool than eyes. The clicking is directional and consistent — a calling male may produce the same call sequence for minutes at a stretch, making it easy to track and approach. The distinction between northern and southern cricket frog calls (faster clicking vs. slower clicking) is audible with attention. A companion familiar with the habitat can provide bank edge guidance for closer approach.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Does Cricket Frog live in North Louisiana?
Yes. Acris species are some of the smallest vertebrates in North Louisiana, smaller than every frog found in the area except the Rio Grande chirping frog, and they are named with such straightforward accuracy that there is no ambiguity about what you're looking at or what it sounds like. Two species occur in North Louisiana: the northern cricket frog (Acris crepitans) and the southern cricket frog (Acris gryllus). Two species in the genus Acris occur in North Louisiana.
How do you identify Cricket Frog?
Cricket frogs belong to the family Hylidae — the tree frogs — but they are not arboreal. They are ground-dwellers that live at the edges of permanent or semi-permanent water bodies, in vegetation, on mud, on banks, and occasionally in shallow water, but not in trees. The family classification is based on evolutionary relationships and anatomy rather than behavior, and cricket frogs are tree frogs in the same way that humans are apes — technically accurate but behaviorally misleading. Two species in the genus Acris occur in North Louisiana. The northern cricket frog has three subspecies: Blanchard's cricket frog, eastern cricket frog, and coastal cricket frog. The southern cricket frog has two subspecies: Florida cricket frog and coastal plain cricket frog. In North Louisiana you will encounter Blanchard's cricket frog and the eastern cricket frog — both subspecies of the northern cricket frog — and the southern cricket frog. The northern species is slightly larger than the southern, though both are tiny. Adult Blanchard's cricket frogs range from half an inch to an inch and a half long. Eastern cricket frogs grow to between three-quarters of an inch and an inch and a half. Southern cricket frogs range from half an inch to an inch and a quarter. These are measurements that require a ruler, good lighting, and a cooperative frog that is not actively trying to leap away from the measuring process.
What does Cricket Frog eat?
Cricket frogs begin life as cute little herbivores and grow into cute little vicious insectivores. As tadpoles, they eat algae, detritus, and microscopic plant matter, grazing on submerged vegetation and the algae film on rocks and plants with a small mouth optimized for scraping surfaces
Is Cricket Frog dangerous to people?
Cricket Frogs and Humans
A healthy cricket frog population around a pond or wetland in Louisiana is doing mosquito control work that nobody paid for and nobody is thanking them for. The southern species in particular focuses its diet on mosquitoes, and in a state where mosquito season runs from approximately March through the first hard freeze and the mosquitoes appear to have a coordinated strategy, a congregation of cricket frogs at a pond edge is public health infrastructure disguised as amphibians.
Although cricket frogs are listed as Least Concern by the IUCN Red List, populations are declining in parts of the range — potentially due to drought, fertilizers and pesticides, highway salts, and other pollutants. Because the frogs have a short lifespan, population dips are slow to recover. Blanchard's cricket frog has disappeared from some northern areas and is listed as a Species of Special Concern in Michigan.
In Louisiana, the species remains common, but cricket frogs are part of a broader pattern of amphibian decline that affects nearly every continent and reflects the combination of habitat loss, pollution, invasive species, and disease that has made amphibians the most threatened vertebrate class on Earth.
Their permeable skin is the critical vulnerability. Amphibians absorb water and dissolved compounds through their skin, which makes them exquisitely sensitive to chemical contamination that other vertebrates filter or excrete before it causes systemic damage. A pesticide application that leaves mammals and birds untouched can kill an entire local cricket frog population within days. This is why amphibian population trends function as a standing water quality indicator — where they thrive, the water is clean enough to absorb through skin without dying.
