Amphibia · Anura
Lithobates chiricahuensisPlatz & Mecham, 1979
Chiricahua Leopard Frog
Photograph by danygl, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A frog reaching 135 mm snout to vent.
Amphibia › Anura › Ranidae › Lithobates
- Grows to
- 135mm
- greatest recorded
- Lives up to
- 11years
- Lives
- Aquatic, terrestrial
- Weighs up to
- 137.3g
- greatest
Longer than 98% of all species in Ranidae anyone has measured.
The bar is the rank itself: its length is the share of the family this animal exceeds. The chart below is the family’s real spread, on a logarithmic scale because body length here runs from 20 to 203 mm. The solid rule is this animal. Every bar is a count of real species, and nothing on this figure is estimated.
What is known
18 sourced facts, each taken from a named scientific dataset. How to read these.
Cited from a dataset unless a row is marked otherwise.
Standing in the world
- Conservation status
- Vulnerable
The animal itself
- Longest recorded life
- 11years
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 135mm5.25 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 73.3mm3 in
- Length snout to vent · adult male mean
- 67.7mm2.75 in
- Body mass · greatestmeasured
- 137.3g4.8 oz
snout-to-vent length, as this source reports for Anura
mean adult female snout-to-vent length
mean adult male snout-to-vent length
maximum adult body mass as recorded in the source
How it lives
- Eats arthropods
- Unknown
- Eats vertebrates
- Unknown
- Eats plant matter
- Unknown
- Where it lives
- Aquatic, terrestrial
a blank flag in this source means unrecorded, not absent
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- How the young develop
- Through a larval stage
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 892eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 1per year
- Mature at
- 3years
Naming and history
- Described by
- Platz & Mecham
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1979
Keeping one
Chiricahua Leopard Frog is assessed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List. Species at risk in the wild are often covered by CITES and by national law, which decide what may be bought, sold, moved across a border or kept at all — and captive-bred and wild-caught animals are usually treated differently. Check the rules where you are before acquiring one. Nothing below is a judgement about keeping this species; it is what a published welfare standard says about space, and what the animal itself was measured doing.
- Land
- 135 × 68cm
- Water, at least 27 cm deep
- 68 × 68cm
Minimum, and for two animals — which is how the standard states it. Bigger is always better. Around 68 cm tall on average.
The standard gives 10 × 5 body lengths of land and 5 × 5 of water, for two animals.
For each further animal the standard asks for another 27 × 27 cm of land and 27 × 14 cm of water.
Swiss Tierschutzverordnung (TSchV), SR 455.1, Anhang 2, Tabelle 6 — legally binding minimum enclosure sizes for amphibians, given as multiples of total body length and stated for two animals.
From this animal’s own snout-vent length, which for a frog is its body length of 5.25 in (135 mm) — how this is worked out.
Chiricahua Leopard Frog
Feeding
16kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 137 g, the heaviest recorded for Chiricahua Leopard Frog — so it is the top of the range, not a figure for a particular animal. Weigh yours and the number will be lower.
An upper estimate, not a feeding target, and not veterinary advice. The equation covers only what an animal burns staying alive, so a growing, gravid or recovering animal needs more — and it was measured on wild animals, which move far more than one in an enclosure. Body condition and a vet who knows the species are what a feeding decision should rest on. Where this comes from.
What nobody knows
These are not gaps in our research. No scientific dataset records them for this species — and saying so is information you cannot get from a reference that simply leaves a field out.
- — Still living
- — Length snout to vent · adult mean
- — Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- — Female length · mean, nose to tail
- — Length nose to tail · adult male mean
- — Length nose to tail · adult mean
- — Largest female · snout to vent
- — Largest male · snout to vent
- — Largest female · shell length
- — Largest male · shell length
- — Hatchling length · snout to vent
- — Hatchling length · nose to tail
- — Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- — Largest juvenile · shell length
- — Egg length
- — Egg width
- — Body mass · a typical adult
- — Body mass · adult female, mean
- — Body mass at hatching
- — Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradient
- — Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- — Diet
- — How it hunts
- — Active
- — Gestation or incubation
- — Average clutch
- — Mean clutch · smallest reported
- — Mean clutch · largest reported
- — Clutches a year · fewest
- — Clutches a year · most
- — First breeds from · youngest recorded
- — First breeds by · oldest recorded
- — Hatchling length · smallest recorded
- — Hatchling length · largest recorded
- — Age at first breeding · female
- — Size at maturity · smallest recorded
- — Size at maturity · largest recorded
- — Venomous
- — Fangs
- — Body temp in the wild · lowest mean recorded
- — Body temp in the wild · highest mean recorded
- — Limbs
- — Colour on the back
- — Pattern on the back
- — Pupil
- — Sex decided by
- — Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
- — Population trend
- — Red List criteria
- — Region
- — Biome
- — Active season · shortest recorded
- — Active season · longest recorded
- — Density · lowest recorded
- — Density · highest recorded
- — Home range · largest recorded
- — Suborder
- — Infraorder
- — Subspecies
- — Type locality
- — Habitat
- — Active in
- — Mainland or island
- — Lowest it lives · above sea level
- — Highest it lives · above sea level
- — Range size
Others in Ranidae
Take this data
Everything on this page is available as data under CC BY 4.0 — use it freely, credit it, no permission needed.
This species as JSON · the whole dataset
Cite this page
The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia (2026). Lithobates chiricahuensis. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/lithobates-chiricahuensis
@misc{lithobates_chiricahuensis_2026,
title = {Lithobates chiricahuensis},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/lithobates-chiricahuensis}
}Sources
- Oliveira, B.F. et al. (2017). AmphiBIO, a global database for amphibian ecological traits. Scientific Data 4:170123. Used under CC BY 4.0.
- GBIF Secretariat. GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Used under CC BY 4.0. Common names aggregated from constituent checklists.
- Catalogue of Life (dataset 3LR), used under CC BY.
- Huang, N. et al. (2023). Amphibian traits database: a global database on morphological traits of amphibians. Global Ecology and Biogeography 32, 633-641. Used under CC BY 4.0.