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Eastern Cricket Frog
Acris crepitans
 
Description: Size 0.6-1.3 inches. The cricket frogs are our smallest Tennessee frogs. These tiny frogs are jewel-like and are marked in a wide variety of brilliant colors.  They have a dark triangle between their eyes and usually a bright "Y" stripe running down their back.  They differ from the Southern Cricket Frog in having more than 1/2 of their longest toe on their rear feet webbed.  This characteristic can be seen in the photograph above and can be seen with binoculars at close range in the field. 

Voice: Call sounds like two small pebbles being tapped together.  The tapping starts out slowly, accelerates in tempo and then slows.  We have heard them March through July, but calling usually starts in April and peaks in May.

Habitat: Eastern Cricket Frogs live along the open edges of permanent ponds, lakes and slow moving streams.

Range: Statewide except for the the higher elevations of the eastern mountains.