THE CENTER FOR NORTH AMERICAN HERPETOLOGY

Amphibia    Anura    Hylidae  

Cuban Treefrog
Osteopilus septentrionalis (Duméril and Bibron, 1841)

SSAR 9th Edition Comments:
 Native to The Bahamas, Cayman Islands, Cuba, and Virgin Islands. It was first observed during the 1920s on Key West, Florida, where it likely arrived as a stowaway in shipping containers and is now established throughout Florida (Barbour, 1931, Copeia 1931: 140; Allen and Neil, 1953, Copeia 1953: 127–128; Enge, 2019, Osteopilus septentrionalis. Pages 171–174 in Krysko et al. (Editors). Amphibians and reptiles of Florida. University of Florida Press, Gainesville, Florida), north along the Atlantic coast to Savannah, Georgia (Johnson, 2007, Herpetological Review 38: 349), and in New Orleans, Louisiana (Glorioso et al., 2018, Biological Invasions 20: 2707–271). Meshaka et al. (2022, Exotic Amphibians and Reptiles of the United States. University Press of Florida, Gainesville, Florida) speculated that it may have been native to Key West.
Page 65: The page range for the Glorioso et al., (2018) reference should be 2707-2713. — (4/9/2025)

Range maps are based on curated specimens and provided gratis by CNAH.
(Created by Travis W. Taggart; Version: 2025.03.29.21.22.46)
Download GeoJSON polygon range file: - 0.41 MB

Province/State Distribution:
USA: Florida Hawaii

First instance(s) of published English names:
Giant Tree Frog (Hyla septentrionalis: 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.); Cuban Tree Frog (Hyla septentrionalis: 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:
1841 Dumeril, A. M. Constant and Gabriel Bibron. Erpetologie Generale ou Histoire Naturelle Complete Des Reptiles. Tome Huitieme. [General Herpetology or Complete Natural History of Reptiles. Volume Eight.] Librairie Encyclopedique de Roret, Paris, France. 784pp.
1931 Barbour, Thomas. Another introduced frog in North America. Copeia 1931(3):140
1933 Boyden, Alan and G. Kingsley Noble. The relationships of some common amphibia as determined by serological study. American Museum Novitates (606):1-24
1950 Myers, George S. The systematic status of Hyla septentrionalis, the large tree frog of the Florida Keys, the Bahamas and Cuba. Copeia 1950(3):204-214
1953 Allen, E. Ross and Wilfred T. Neill. The treefrog, Hyla septentrionalis, in Florida. Copeia 1953(2):127-128
1996 McKeown, Sean. A Field Guide to Reptiles and Amphibians in the Hawaiian Islands. Diamond Head Publishing, Inc., Los Osos, California. pp.
1996 Meshaka, Walter E., Jr. Vagility and the Florida distribution of the Cuban treefrog (Osteopilus septentrionalis). Herpetological Review 27(1):37-40
1996 Meshaka, Walter E. Retreat use by the Cuban treefrog (Osteopilus septentrionalis): Implications for successful colonization in Florida. Journal of Herpetology 30(3):443-445
2005 Faivovich, J., C. F. B. Haddad, P. C. de A. Garcia, D. R. Frost, J. A. Campbell, and W. C. Wheeler. Systematic review of the frog family Hylidae, with special reference to Hylinae: A phylogenetic analysis and taxonomic revision. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History (294):1–240
2005 Smith, Kevin G. An exploratory assessment of Cuban Treefrog (Osteopilus septentrionalis) tadpoles as predators of native and nonindigenous tadpoles in Florida. Amphibia-Reptilia 26(4):571-575
2007 Johnson, S. A. Geographic Distribution. Osteopilus septentrionalis (Cuban Treefrog). Herpetological Review 38(3):349
2014 Chatfield, Matthew W. and Matt Vance. Geographic distribution. Osteopilus septentrionalis (Cuban Treefrog). Herpetological Review 45(2):278
2018 Glorioso, Brad M., J. H. Waddle, L. J. Muse, N. D. Jennings, M. Litton, J. Hamilton, S. Gergen, and D. Heckard. Establishment of the exotic invasive Cuban treefrog (Osteopilus septentrionalis) in Louisiana. Biological Invasions 20(10):2707-271
2022 Meshaka, Walter E. Jr., R. Bruce Bury, Suzanne L. Collins, and Malcolm L. McCallum. Exotic Amphibians and Reptiles of the United States. University Press of Florida, Gainesville, Florida. 245pp.

THE CENTER FOR NORTH AMERICAN HERPETOLOGY — Accessed: Saturday 19 April 2025 22:15 CT