All Angles Creatures
Anura · RanidaeEntry 15,087 of 21,572
pool frog, Pelophylax lessonae

Amphibia · Anura

Pelophylax lessonaeCamerano, 1882

pool frog

Photograph by Antoine Thivolle, CC BY, via iNaturalist

A nocturnal frog reaching 80 mm snout to vent.

Also called Pool Frog.

Once published as Pelophylax bergeri — those names reach this page.

AmphibiaAnuraRanidaePelophylax

Grows to
80mm
greatest recorded
Active
Nocturnal
Lives up to
10years
Lives
Aquatic, terrestrial
Body length across Ranidae

Longer than 64% of all species in Ranidae anyone has measured.

64% of 310 species are smaller36% larger
20 mmthe whole family, smallest to largest203 mm

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

22 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
Least Concern
Population trend
Decreasing

as reported by the IUCN Red List

The animal itself

Longest recorded life
10years

Size

Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
80mm3.25 in

snout-to-vent length, as this source reports for Anura

Length snout to vent · adult female mean
53.7mm2 in

mean adult female snout-to-vent length

Length snout to vent · adult male mean
46.44mm1.75 in

mean adult male snout-to-vent length

Body mass · greatestmeasured
75.4g2.7 oz

maximum adult body mass as recorded in the source

How it lives

Eats arthropods
Yes

a blank flag in this source means unrecorded, not absent

Eats vertebrates
Unknown
Eats plant matter
Unknown
Active
Nocturnal
Where it lives
Aquatic, terrestrial

Breeding

Reproduction
Oviparous
How the young develop
Through a larval stage
Average clutch
2420

AnAge rates this record "acceptable"

Eggs or young per clutch
3000eggs
Clutches in a year
1per year
Hatchling length
7mm
Mature at
2–4years

Naming and history

Described by
Camerano
Moved to another genus · since it was first described
Yes
Described in
1882

Keeping one

Land
80 × 40cm
Water, at least 16 cm deep
40 × 40cm

Minimum, and for two animals — which is how the standard states it. Bigger is always better. Around 40 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 16 × 16 cm of land and 16 × 8 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 3.25 in (80 mm) — how this is worked out.

pool frog

Feeding

9kJ per day

Worked out for an animal of 75 g, the heaviest recorded for pool 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
  • Gestation or incubation
  • 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
  • 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
  • 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). Pelophylax lessonae. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/pelophylax-lessonae

@misc{pelophylax_lessonae_2026,
  title  = {Pelophylax lessonae},
  author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
  year   = {2026},
  url    = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/pelophylax-lessonae}
}

Sources

  1. Oliveira, B.F. et al. (2017). AmphiBIO, a global database for amphibian ecological traits. Scientific Data 4:170123. Used under CC BY 4.0.
  2. AnAge, Human Ageing Genomic Resources (de Magalhães et al.), used under CC BY 3.0.
  3. GBIF Secretariat. GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Used under CC BY 4.0. Common names aggregated from constituent checklists.
  4. Catalogue of Life (dataset 3LR), used under CC BY.
  5. 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.
  6. Moura, M. R. et al. TetrapodTraits: a database of 33,281 tetrapod species. Used under CC BY 4.0. Observed values only; this encyclopedia does not publish its imputed predictions.