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

Amerana aurora (Baird and Girard, 1852)

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Ranidae > Genus: Amerana > Species: Amerana aurora

Rana aurora Baird and Girard, 1852, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, 6: 174. Syntypes: Not stated; USNM 11711 (4 specimens) according to Cochran, 1961, Bull. U.S. Natl. Mus., 220: 72. Type locality: "Puget Sound", Washington, USA.

Rana temporaria aurora — Cope, 1875, Bull. U.S. Natl. Mus., 1: 32; Yarrow and Henshaw, 1878, Annu. Rep. Chief of Engineers for 1878. Appendix L. Rep. Rept. Batr. 1875–1877 California Arizona Nevada: 209.

Rana agilis aurora — Cope, 1886, Proc. Am. Philos. Soc., 23: 521; Cope, 1889, Bull. U.S. Natl. Mus., 34: 439.

Rana aurora aurora — Camp, 1917, Univ. California Publ. Zool., 17: 115–125.

Rana (Rana) aurora — Dubois, 1987 "1986", Alytes, 5: 41, by implication.

Rana (Aurorana) aurora — Dubois, 1992, Bull. Mens. Soc. Linn. Lyon, 61: 322.

Rana aurora — Shaffer, Fellers, Voss, Oliver, and Pauly, 2004, Mol. Ecol., 13: 2667.

Rana (Laurasiarana, Amerana) aurora — Hillis and Wilcox, 2005, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 34: 311, by implication; see Dubois, 2006, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 42: 317–330, and Hillis, 2007, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 42: 331–338, for discussion. Invalid name formulation under the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (1999) as discussed by Dubois, 2007, Cladistics, 23: 395.

Rana (Amerana) aurora — Dubois, 2006, C. R. Biol., Paris, 329: 830; Fouquette and Dubois, 2014, Checklist N.A. Amph. Rept.: 391; Yuan, Zhou, Chen, Poyarkov, Chen, Jang-Liaw, Chou, Matzke, Iizuka, Min, Kuzmin, Zhang, Cannatella, Hillis, and Che, 2016, Syst. Biol., 65: 835.

Aurorana aurora — Fei, Ye, and Jiang, 2010, Herpetol. Sinica, 12: 37. See comment under Ranidae record.

Amerana aurora — Dubois, Ohler, and Pyron, 2021, Megataxa, 5: 424.

Common Names

Western Wood Frog (Rana aurora: Yarrow, 1882, Bull. U.S. Natl. Mus., 24: 25).

Red-legged Frog (Rana aurora: Stebbins, 1951, Amph. W. North Am.: 334; Schmidt, 1953, Check List N. Am. Amph. Rept., Ed. 6: 84; Conant, Cagle, Goin, Lowe, Neill, Netting, Schmidt, Shaw, Stebbins, and Bogert, 1956, Copeia, 1956: 176; Stebbins, 1966, Field Guide W. North Am. Rept. Amph.: 70; Collins, Huheey, Knight, and Smith, 1978, Herpetol. Circ., 7: 12; Liner, 1994, Herpetol. Circ., 23: 27; 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: 225).

Oregon Red-legged Frog (Rana aurora aurora: Storer, 1925, Univ. California Publ. Zool., 27: 43; Wright and Wright, 1933, Handb. Frogs Toads U.S. Canada: xi; Schmidt, 1953, Check List N. Am. Amph. Rept., Ed. 6: 85),

Northern Red-legged Frog (Rana aurora aurora: Conant, Cagle, Goin, Lowe, Neill, Netting, Schmidt, Shaw, Stebbins, and Bogert, 1956, Copeia, 1956: 176; Stebbins, 1966, Field Guide W. North Am. Rept. Amph.: 71; 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: 226).

Northern Red-legged Frog (Rana aurora: 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: 9; 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).

Distribution

Southwestern British Columbia and Vancouver Island south along the Pacific coast to Mendocino County, California, USA; isolated record in southeastern Alaska.

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: Canada, United States of America, United States of America - Alaska, United States of America - California, United States of America - Nevada

Comment

In the Rana boylii group of North American authors. In the Rana aurora group of Dubois, 1987 "1986", Alytes, 5: 42, in the equivalent Section Amerana, subgenus Aurorana of Dubois, 1992, Bull. Mens. Soc. Linn. Lyon, 61: 322. (Although Aurorana was shown by Hillis and Wilcox, 2005, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 34: 305, to be paraphyletic with respect to Amerana.) Reviewed by Altig and Dumas, 1972, Cat. Am. Amph. Rept., 160: 1–4. Hayes and Miyamoto, 1984, Copeia, 1984: 1018–1022, suggested that Rana aurora aurora and Rana aurora draytoni might be distinct species. Dubois, 1992, Bull. Mens. Soc. Linn. Lyon, 61: 322, considered Rana aurora draytoni a distinct species without discussion. Shaffer, Fellers, Voss, Oliver, and Pauly, 2004, Mol. Ecol., 13: 2667–2677, discussed molecular phylogeography, presented data in support of Rana draytonii and Rana aurora being different species, and suggested that Rana aurora is more closely related to Rana cascadae than to Rana draytonii. Conlon, Al-Ghafari, Coquet, Leprince, Jouenne, Vaudry, and Davidson, 2006, Peptides, 27: 1305–1312, provided evidence from skin peptides that Rana aurora and Rana draytonii are distinct species. Ovaska, Hyatt, and Sopuck, 2002, Herpetol. Rev., 33: 318, discussed the history of introductions in the Queen Charlotte Islands and vicinity, western Canada. Pauly, Ron, and Lerum, 2008, J. Herpetol., 42: 668–679, reported on the phylogeogeography and ecology of these extralimital populations of Rana cascadae, Rana draytonii, and Rana aurora. See statement of geographic range, habitat, and conservation status in Stuart, Hoffmann, Chanson, Cox, Berridge, Ramani, and Young, 2008, Threatened Amph. World: 631. Pauly, Ron, and Lerum, 2008, J. Herpetol., 42: 668–679, reported on molecular phylogeography and demonstrated that Rana aurora and Rana draytonii are not each others' closest relatives. Pearl, 2005, in Lannoo (ed.), Amph. Declines: 528–530, and Dodd, 2013, Frogs U.S. and Canada, 2 : 687–697, provided account that summarized relevant literature. Elliot, Gerhardt, and Davidson, 2009, Frogs and Toads of N. Am.: 238–241, provided an account, photos, and advertisement call. Altig and McDiarmid, 2015, Handb. Larval Amph. US and Canada: 241–242, provided an account of larval morphology and biology.

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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.