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

Lithobates fisheri (Stejneger, 1893)

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Ranidae > Genus: Lithobates > Species: Lithobates fisheri

Rana fisheri Stejneger, 1893, N. Am. Fauna, 7: 227. Holotype: USNM 18957, according to Cochran, 1961, Bull. U.S. Natl. Mus., 220: 73. Type locality: "Vegas Valley, [Clark County,] Nevada", USA.

Rana pipiens fisheri — Stebbins, 1951, Amph. W. North Am.: 365).

Rana onca fisheri — Stebbins, 1985, Field Guide W. Rept. Amph., Ed. 2: 91, by implication; Stebbins, 2003, Field Guide W. Rept. Amph., Ed. 3: 238. See comment.

Rana (Rana) fisheri — Dubois, 1987 "1986", Alytes, 5: 41–42, by implication.

Rana (Pantherana) fisheri — Dubois, 1992, Bull. Mens. Soc. Linn. Lyon, 61: 331; Yuan, Zhou, Chen, Poyarkov, Chen, Jang-Liaw, Chou, Matzke, Iizuka, Min, Kuzmin, Zhang, Cannatella, Hillis, and Che, 2016, Syst. Biol., 65: 835.

Rana (Novirana, Sierrana, Pantherana, Stertirana, Lacusirana) fisheri — Hillis and Wilcox, 2005, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 34: 312. See Dubois, 2006, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 42: 317–330, Hillis, 2007, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 42: 331–338, and Dubois, 2007, Cladistics, 23: 390–402, for relevant discussion of nomenclature. Invalid name formulation under the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (1999) as discussed by Dubois, 2007, Cladistics, 23: 395.

Rana (Novirana) fisheri — Hillis and Wilcox, 2005, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 34: 312. Nomenclatural act as interpreted by Fouquette and Dubois, 2014, Checklist N.A. Amph. Rept.: 415.

Lithobates fisheri — Frost, Grant, Faivovich, Bain, Haas, Haddad, de Sá, Channing, Wilkinson, Donnellan, Raxworthy, Campbell, Blotto, Moler, Drewes, Nussbaum, Lynch, Green, and Wheeler, 2006, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., 297: 369; Che, Pang, Zhao, Wu, Zhao, and Zhang, 2007, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 43: 1–13; by implication.

Lithobates (Lithobates) fisheri — Dubois, 2006, C. R. Biol., Paris, 329: 829; Dubois, 2006, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 42: 325.

Rana (Lacusirana) fisheri — Hillis, 2007, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 42: 335–336, by implication.

Rana (Lithobates) fisheri — Fouquette and Dubois, 2014, Checklist N.A. Amph. Rept.: 415.

English Names

Vegas Valley Leopard Frog (Schmidt, 1953, Check List N. Am. Amph. Rept., Ed. 6: 83; Conant, Cagle, Goin, Lowe, Neill, Netting, Schmidt, Shaw, Stebbins, and Bogert, 1956, Copeia, 1956: 177; Stebbins, 1966, Field Guide W. North Am. Rept. Amph.: 76; Frost, McDiarmid, and Mendelson, 2008, in Crother (ed.), Herpetol. Circ., 37: 8; Frost, McDiarmid, Mendelson, and Green, 2012, in Crother (ed.), Herpetol. Circ., 39: 17; Frost, Lemmon, McDiarmid, and Mendelson, 2017, in Crother (ed.), Herpetol. Circ., 43: 14).

Vegas Valley Frog (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 107; Crother, Boundy, Campbell, de Queiroz, Frost, Highton, Iverson, Meylan, Reeder, Seidel, Sites, Taggart, Tilley, and Wake, 2001 "2000", Herpetol. Circ., 29: 14).

Distribution

Extinct at the type locality (Las Vegas, Clark County, Nevada, USA), but populations along the Mogollon Rim in Arizona to west-southwestern New Mexico persist.

Comment

Confused with Rana onca in recent literature until sorted by Jaeger, Riddle, Jennings, and Bradford, 2001, Copeia, 2001: 339–351. Extinct since the 1940's in the Las Vegas area (see Honegger, 1981, Biol. Conserv., 19: 142). See Platz, 1984, Status report for Rana onca Cope, U.S. Fish Wildlife Serv.. Included in the Rana (Pantherana) berlandieri group by Dubois, 1992, Bull. Mens. Soc. Linn. Lyon, 61: 331 (although the holotype is clearly a member of the Rana montezumae group—DRF, personal observation). Hillis and Wilcox, 2005, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 34: 308, suggested that extant populations of Lithobates chiricahuensis from Mogollon Rim region of central Arizona were likely referable to Lithobates fisheri. See map, description of geographic range and habitat, and conservation status in Stuart, Hoffmann, Chanson, Cox, Berridge, Ramani, and Young, 2008, Threatened Amph. World: 139, who regarded the species as extinct. Hekkala, Saumure, Jaeger, Herrmann, Sredl, Bradford, Drabeck, and Blum, 2011, Conserv. Genetics, 12: 1379–1385, provided genetic evidence that the populations found in central Arizona to western New Mexico were attributable to this species. Jennings, 2005, in Lannoo (ed.), Amph. Declines: 554–555, provided a detailed account of Rana fisheri in the sense of only referring to the Vegas Valley population, which is now extinct. Dodd, 2013, Frogs U.S. and Canada, 2 : 547–551, provided an account that summarized relevant literature.

External links:

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To search the NIH genetic sequence database, see GenBank
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.