THE CENTER FOR NORTH AMERICAN HERPETOLOGY

Amphibia    Anura    Ranidae  

River Frog
Lithobates heckscheri (Wright, 1924)
LITH-oh-BAY-teez — HEK-sher-eye

SSAR 9th Edition Comments:
 There are no current SSAR comments for this taxon.

Range maps are based on curated specimens and provided gratis by CNAH.
(Created by Travis W. Taggart; Version: 2023.04.09.21.41.43)
Download GeoJSON polygon range file: - 0.24 MB

Province/State Distribution:
United States: Alabama Florida Georgia Mississippi North Carolina South Carolina

Taxonomic Etymology:
Named for a biologist who contributed to early research on southern U.S. amphibians.
Lithobates — From Greek lithos (λίθος), “stone,” and bates (βάτης), “one who walks or treads.” The name can be interpreted as “rock-walker,” possibly referencing the terrestrial habits of many species in the genus.
heckscheri — A patronym honoring August Heckscher (1848–1941), a prominent American philanthropist and conservationist. He funded natural history surveys in the southeastern United States. Latinized genitive form of Heckscher → heckscheri = “of Heckscher”.

First instance(s) of published English names:
Wright's Bull-frog (Rana heckscheri: Wright, Anna Allen, and Alex Hazen Wright. 1933. Handbook of frogs and toads. The frogs and toads of the United States and Canada Comstock Publishing Associates, Ithaca, NY. xi+231pp.); Heckscher's Frog (Rana heckscheri: Wright, Anna Allen, and Alex Hazen Wright. 1933. Handbook of frogs and toads. The frogs and toads of the United States and Canada Comstock Publishing Associates, Ithaca, NY. xi+231pp.); River-swamp Frog (Rana heckscheri: Wright, Anna Allen, and Alex Hazen Wright. 1933. Handbook of frogs and toads. The frogs and toads of the United States and Canada Comstock Publishing Associates, Ithaca, NY. xi+231pp.); Greenback (Rana heckscheri: Wright, Anna Allen, and Alex Hazen Wright. 1933. Handbook of frogs and toads. The frogs and toads of the United States and Canada Comstock Publishing Associates, Ithaca, NY. xi+231pp.); River Swamp Frog (Rana heckscheri: Schmidt, Karl P. 1953. A Check List of North American Amphibians and Reptiles. 6th Edition. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois. 280pp.);

Taxon Links:

  
Catalog of American Amphibians and Reptiles
  
Amphibian Species of the World
  
NatureServe
  
iNaturalist
  
GenBank
  
USGS - Nonindigenous Aquatic Species Database

Selected References:
1920 Boulenger, George A. A monograph of the American frogs of the genus Rana. Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (55):413-480
1924 Wright, A. H. A new bullfrog (Rana heckscheri) from Georgia and Florida. Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington 37:141–152
1959 Simmons, Robert and Jerry D. Hardy, Jr. The river-swamp frog, Rana heckscheri Wright, in North Carolina. Herpetologica 15:36-37
1984 Sanders, Albert E. Rana heckscheri. Catalogue of American Amphibians and Reptiles (348):1-2
1985 Hillis, David M. Evolutionary genetics and systematics of New World frogs of the genus Rana: An analysis of ribosomal DNA, allozymes, and morphology. Dissertation. University of Kansas, Lawrence. pp.
2003 Austin, James D., Stephen C. Lougheed, Paul E. Moler, and Peter T. Boag. Phylogenetics, zoogeography, and the role of dispersal and vicariance in the evolution of the Rana catesbeiana (Anura: Ranidae) species group. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 80:601-624
2022 MacGuigan, Daniel J., Genevieve G. Mount, Gregory J. Watkins-Colwell, Thomas J. Near, and Max R. Lambert. Genomic data clarify Aquarana systematics and reveal isolation-by-distance dominates phylogeography of the wide-ranging frog Rana clamitans. Ichthyology & Herpetology 110(3):602-617
2025 Chambers, E. Anne, José Daniel Lara-Tufiño, Gustavo Campillo-García, Antonio Yolocalli Cisneros-Bernal, Daniel J. Dudek Jr., Virginia León-Règagnon, Josiah H. Townsend, Oscar Flores-Villela, and David M. Hillis. Distinguishing species boundaries from geographic variation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 122(19):e2423688122

THE CENTER FOR NORTH AMERICAN HERPETOLOGY — Accessed: Tuesday 27 January 2026 17:16 CT