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

Pseudacris ornata (Holbrook, 1836)

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Hylidae > Subfamily: Hylinae > Genus: Pseudacris > Species: Pseudacris ornata

Rana ornata Holbrook, 1836, N. Am. Herpetol., 1: 97. Type(s): Frog figured in pl 16; not now known to exist. Type locality: ". . . only in South Carolina . . . about four miles from Charleston, between the Cooper and Ashley rivers . . .", Charleston County, South Carolina, USA. Senior secondary homonym of Pyxicephalus ornatus when that taxon is in Rana.

Cystignathus ornatus — Holbrook, 1842, N. Am. Herpetol., Ed. 2, 4: 103.

Litoria occidentalis Baird and Girard, 1853, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, 6: 301. Type(s): Not stated although presumably originally in USNM or ANSP. Type locality: "San Francisco", California, USA, in error according to Stejneger and Barbour, 1933, Check List N. Am. Amph. Rept., Ed. 3: 32; restricted to Liberty County, Georgia, USA, by Schmidt, 1953, Check List N. Am. Amph. Rept., Ed. 6: 76. Synonymy by Schmidt, 1953, Check List N. Am. Amph. Rept., Ed. 6: 76.

Chorophilus ornatus — LeConte, 1855, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, 7: 428.

Cystignathus ornatus — Günther, 1859 "1858", Cat. Batr. Sal. Coll. Brit. Mus.: 29.

Chorophilus copii Boulenger, 1882, Cat. Batr. Sal. Coll. Brit. Mus., Ed. 2: 334. Holotype: BMNH 1858.2.23.55, according to Duellman, 1977, Das Tierreich, 95: 170. Type locality: "Georgia", USA. Synonymy with Litoria occidentalis by Cope, 1889, Bull. U.S. Natl. Mus., 34: 335. Synonymy by Nieden, 1923, Das Tierreich, 46: 351.

Chorophilus occidentalis — Cope, 1889, Bull. U.S. Natl. Mus., 34: 335.

Hyla copii — Günther, 1901, Biol. Centr. Amer., Rept. Batr., Vol. 7, Part 165: 266; Noble, 1923, Am. Mus. Novit., 70: 5.

Pseudacris occidentalis — Stejneger and Barbour, 1917, Check List N. Am. Amph. Rept.: 30.

Pseudacris ornata — Stejneger and Barbour, 1917, Check List N. Am. Amph. Rept.: 31.

Hyla ornata — Noble, 1923, Am. Mus. Novit., 70: 5, by implication.

Pseudacris copii — Noble, 1923, Am. Mus. Novit., 70: 1.

Hyla occidentalis — Noble, 1923, Am. Mus. Novit., 70: 5, by implication.

Hyla weberi Noble, 1923, Am. Mus. Novit., 70: 5. Replacement name for Chorophilus copii Boulenger, 1882.

Hyla (Pseudacris) ornata — Dubois, 1984, Alytes, 3: 85.

Pseudacris (Pycnacris) ornata — Fouquette and Dubois, 2014, Checklist N.A. Amph. Rept.: 362.

English Names

Ornate Land Frog (Cystignathus ornatus: Wood, 1863, Illust. Nat. Hist., 3: 161).

Smooth Chorus Frog (Chorophilus occidentalis [no longer recognized]: Brimley, 1907, J. Elisha Mitchell Sci. Soc., 23: 158; Wood, 1863, Illust. Nat. Hist., 3: 151)

Western Chorus Frog (Chorophilus occidentalis [no longer recognized]: Strecker, 1915, Baylor Univ. Bull., 18: 48); Wright and Wright, 1933, Handb. Frogs Toads U.S. Canada: x [as Pseudacris occidentalis]).

Ornate Tree Frog (Pseudacris ornata: Yarrow, 1882, Bull. U.S. Natl. Mus., 24: 24).

Ornate Winter-Frog (Pseudacris ornata: Carr, 1940, Univ. Florida Biol. Sci. Ser., 3: 57).

Ornate Chorus Frog (Pseudacris ornata: Strecker, 1915, Baylor Univ. Bull., 18: 48; Wright and Wright, 1933, Handb. Frogs Toads U.S. Canada: x; Schmidt, 1953, Check List N. Am. Amph. Rept., Ed. 6: 76; Conant, Cagle, Goin, Lowe, Neill, Netting, Schmidt, Shaw, Stebbins, and Bogert, 1956, Copeia, 1956: 176; Conant, 1975, Field Guide Rept. Amph. E. Cent. N. Am., Ed. 2: 332; Collins, Huheey, Knight, and Smith, 1978, Herpetol. Circ., 7: 12; Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 63; 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: 12; Frost, McDiarmid, and Mendelson, 2008, in Crother (ed.), Herpetol. Circ., 37: 10; Collins and Taggart, 2009, Standard Common Curr. Sci. Names N. Am. Amph. Turtles Rept. Crocodil., ed. 6: 7; Frost, McDiarmid, Mendelson, and Green, 2012, in Crother (ed.), Herpetol. Circ., 39: 20; Frost, Lemmon, McDiarmid, and Mendelson, 2017, in Crother (ed.), Herpetol. Circ., 43: 18).

Ornate Winter Frog (Viosca, 1949, Pop. Sci. Bull., Louisiana Acad. Sci., 1: 10).

Distribution

Atlantic Coastal Plain from southeastern North Carolina to central Florida, central and southern Alabama, central and southern Mississippi, and southeastern Louisiana, USA.

Comment

In the Pseudacris nigrita group of Faivovich, Haddad, Garcia, Frost, Campbell, and Wheeler, 2005, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., 294: 106. For discussion see Harper, 1937, Am. Midl. Nat., 18: 260–272. Cocroft and Ryan, 1995, Animal Behav., 49: 283–303, discussed advertisement call in an evolutionary context. Reviewed by Glorioso, 2010, Cat. Am. Amph. Rept., 866: 1–8. Jensen, 2005, in Lannoo (ed.), Amph. Declines: 477–478, and Dodd, 2013, Frogs U.S. and Canada, 1: 395–400, provided account that summarized the relevant literature and range. Elliot, Gerhardt, and Davidson, 2009, Frogs and Toads of N. Am.: 82–83, provided an account, photos, and advertisement call. Altig and McDiarmid, 2015, Handb. Larval Amph. US and Canada: 207–208, provided an account of larval morphology and biology. Guyer and Bailey, 2023, Frogs and Toads of Alabama: 167–170, provided a detailed account for the species in Alabama, USA.

External links:

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For additional information see AmphibiaWeb report
For information on conservation status and distribution see the IUCN Redlist
For related information on conservation and images as well as observation see iNaturalist
For access to available specimen data for this species, from over 350 scientific collections, go to Vertnet.