Description: A medium-sized slender frog with a narrow head and long legs. Tan, brown, light green to bright green above. Large dark dorsal spots, usually with no light halos. Typically there are no spots on the head in front of the eyes. Yellowish below, including the groin and often on the underside of the legs. Older frogs sometimes have dark throat markings. Markings on the rear of the thighs have more dark than light coloring and this reticulation has distinct margins. Prominent light-colored dorsolateral folds are interrupted on the lower back. Faint light stripe on the upper lip. The base of a male's thumb is swollen and dark.

Habitat: This species preferably inhabits rocky streams in canyon habitats surrounded by conifer forests or ponds and stream pools, usually in areas of scrub desert. Eggs and larvae develop in quiet water.

Range: Western and central Arizona and southwestern New Mexico south to northern Sonora and northwestern Chihuahua; southcentral and southeastern California and adjacent Arizona, from San Felipe Creek to the Colorado River. Usually below 3280 feet, to 5575 feet in central Arizona. Apparently extirpated in Imperial Valley, California, and along the lower Colorado River, Arizona-California, though may be extant in some areas close to the Colorado River in Arizona; replaced by introduced L. berlandieri along the Colorado and Gila rivers, Arizona. In Arizona, found in every county except Apache and Navajo with 57% of all localities occurring in Gila, Maricopa, and Yavapai counties. Believed extirpated from New Mexico

Found in these States: AZ | NM

Diet: Most likely eats a variety of invertebrates, along with small fish, frogs, and birds. Tadpoles consume plant matter.

Reproduction: Reproduction is aquatic. Fertilization is external, with the male grasping the back of the female and releasing sperm as the female lays her eggs. The reproductive cycle is similar to that of most North American Frogs and Toads. Mature adults come into breeding condition and move to ponds or ditches where the males call to advertise their fitness to competing males and to females. Males and females pair up in amplexus in the water where the female lays her eggs as the male fertilizes them externally. The adults leave the water and the eggs hatch into tadpoles which feed in the water and eventually grow four legs, lose their tails and emerge onto land where they disperse into the surrounding territory.

Breeding habitat is a variety of natural and man-made aquatic systems such as cattle tanks, canals. irrigation sloughs, rivers, permanent streams, pools in intermittant streams, springs, and beaver ponds. Throughout most of its range, breeding occurs from January to April, possibly with two annual breeding episodes. Egg masses are laid near the water surface. Eggs have been observed to hatch in 15 to 18 days. Tadpoles metamorphose their first year in 3 - 4 months, or they may overwinter and transform in as long as 9 months.

Status: New Mexico has it classified as Critically Imperiled. Arizona as Vulnerable, California as Extinct, and Utah does not have enough data to classify the species status.

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.