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 megapoda (Taylor, 1942)

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

Rana trilobata Mocquard, 1899, Bull. Soc. Philomath., Paris, Ser. 9, 1: 158. Holotype: MNHNP 1897.189 (formerly 169a) according to Kellogg, 1932, Bull. U.S. Natl. Mus., 160: 209. Type locality: "Guadalajara", Jalisco, Mexico. Synonymy by Webb, 1991, Herpetologica, 47: 13-21. Placed on the Official Index of Rejected and Invalid Specific Names in Zoology by Opinion 1776, Anonymous, 1994, Bull. Zool. Nomencl., 51: 181.

Rana megapoda Taylor, 1942, Univ. Kansas Sci. Bull., 28: 310. Holotype: EHT-HMS 3280, by original designation; now FMNH 100025 according to XXX. Type locality: "near Chapala, Jalisco", Mexico. Synonymy by Webb, 1991, Herpetologica, 47: 13-21. Placed on the Official List of Specific Names in Zoology by Opinion 1776, Anonymous, 1994, Bull. Zool. Nomencl., 51: 181.

Rana pipiens trilobata — Smith, 1947, J. Washington Acad. Sci., 37: 409-410. Shannon, 1951, Proc. U.S. Natl. Mus., 101: 479; Davis and Smith, 1953, Herpetologica, 8: 149 (Based on specimens of a member of the Rana berlandieri group).

Rana megapodia — Elter, 1982, Cat. Mus. Reg. Sci. Nat., Torino, 5: 42. Incorrect subsequent spelling.

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

Rana (Pantherana) trilobata — Dubois, 1992, Bull. Mens. Soc. Linn. Lyon, 61: 332; 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) megapoda — Hillis and Wilcox, 2005, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 34: 305. 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.

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

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

Common Names

Bigfoot Leopard Frog (Liner, 1994, Herpetol. Circ., 23: 28; Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 110).

Big-footed Leopard Frog (Liner and Casas-Andreu, 2008, Herpetol. Circ., 38: 16).

Distribution

Southern Nayarit and western Jalisco east to northern Michoacan, and southern Guanajuato, Mexico, 823-1520 m elevation.

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: Mexico

Endemic: Mexico

Comment

See Webb, 1991, Herpetologica, 47: 13-21, and Webb, 1996, Southwest. Nat., 41: 35-42, for accounts. In the Rana montezumae group of the Rana pipiens complex as defined by Hillis, Frost, and Wright, 1983, Syst. Zool., 32: 132-143. In the equivalent Rana (Pantherana) montezumae group of Dubois, 1992, Bull. Mens. Soc. Linn. Lyon, 61: 332. See map, description of geographic range and habitat, and conservation status (as Rana megapoda) in Stuart, Hoffmann, Chanson, Cox, Berridge, Ramani, and Young, 2008, Threatened Amph. World: 507. Loc-Barragán, Smith, Woolrich-Piña, and Lemos-Espinal, 2024, Herpetozoa, Wien, 37: 30, reported on the distributional and conservation status in the state of Nayarit, Mexico.

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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.