The Mississippi gopher frog (Lithobates sevosus), also known commonly as the dark gopher frog, the dusky gopher frog, and the St. Tammany gopher frog, is a critically endangered species of frog in the family Ranidae (true frogs).

Description: The Mississippi gopher frog is a mid-sized, stocky, frog with a total body length of about 3 inches. The frog's back ranges in color from black to brown or gray and is covered with dark spots and warts. The male's call has been compared to the sound of human snoring. Another notable feature of this secretive frog is that, when exposed to bright light or threatened, the frog will put its hands in front of its face to shield its eyes. Other defense responses include inflating its body and excretion of a bitter, milky fluid from warty glands located on its back.

Habitat: The Mississippi gopher frog's habitat includes both upland, sandy areas covered with open longleaf pine forest with abundant ground cover; and isolated, temporary, wetland breeding sites within the forested landscape. Adult frogs spend most of their lives in or near underground refuges in uplands. They often use both active and abandoned gopher tortoise burrows; they also use abandoned mammal burrows, stump and root holes, and possibly crayfish burrows.

Range: The Mississippi gopher frog was once abundant along the Gulf Coastal Plain in lower Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama – from east of the Mississippi River Delta to Mobile Bay. However, it has not been seen in Alabama since 1922 or in Louisiana since 1967. Presently, only two known populations exist, with about 100 frogs to be found in Glen's Pond, Harrison County, Mississippi. The other population is less dense and spread out through the surrounding wetlands, recently found to concentrate around Mike's Pond, Jackson County, Mississippi. Currently, the range of Lithobates sevosus is decreasing at a dramatic rate due to urban sprawl, deforestation, and even fire suppression that destroys the possibility of sunlight reaching down to the wetlands, critical for the growth of the frogs' immediate habitat. Currently, the two known populations of Rana sevosa are separated by only 20 miles.

Found in these States: AL | LA | MS

Diet: The diet of adult Mississippi gopher frogs probably includes frogs, toads, insects, spiders, and earthworms.

Reproduction: Males reach sexual maturity at four to six months and females at two to three years. The fist-sized egg masses, containing 2,000 or more eggs, are typically attached to stems of emergent vegetation. Tadpoles average slightly over 1 inch long and require 80 to 180 days to complete metamorphosis in the field.

Status: IUCN Red List has it classified as Critically Endangered while the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service has it classified as Endangered. Alabama and Louisiana have it classified as possibly extinct in those states.

Subspecies: None

Taxonomy: This species was placed in the genus Lithobates by Frost et al. (2006). However, Yuan et al. (2016, Systematic Biology, doi: 10.1093/sysbio/syw055) showed that this action created problems of paraphyly in other genera. Yuan et al. (2016) recognized subgenera within Rana for the major traditional species groups, with Lithobates used as the subgenus for the Rana palmipes group. AmphibiaWeb recommends the optional use of these subgenera to refer to these major species groups, with names written as Rana (Aquarana) catesbeiana, for example.