Orange…Not Red
I spent four years in Australia researching Litoria chloris (2003-2007), during which time the species was almost always referred to as the Southern Orange-Eyed Treefrog.
Recently I’ve noticed it being called the Red-Eyed Treefrog. I suggest going forward with the original name, as:
(1) The frogs’ eyes tend more towards orange than they do towards red.
(2) Maintaining the word Southern in the frog’s name conveys its geographical location both in Queensland and in contrast to its more northerly relative L. xanthomera, aiding naturalists in species identification.
(3) The world’s most photographed frog is the Red-Eyed Treefrog (Agalychnis callidryas) from Central America; using the same common name for both species increases confusion.
(4) Historically, L. chloris has been known as the Southern Orange-Eyed Treefrog and A. callidryas the Red-Eyed Treefrog; nothing has changed regarding knowledge of the species that justifies or necessitates a name change.
As such, I suggest that Southern Orange Eyed-Treefrog should be used going forward as the optimal common name of Litoria chloris.
I write this because Litoria chloris is my favorite frog species, and I even featured it on the SAVE THE FROGS! Logo, making it one of the world’s most recognized frogs. That its name is clear and conveys useful, correct information is important to me both personally and professionally.
Any thoughts, please let me know!
Common Names For Queensland Frogs (1993)
This PDF by legendary herpetologist Glen Ingram lists L. chloris as Southern Orange-Eyed Treefrog, and L. rothii as Red-Eyed Treefrog…providing yet another reason to avoid using the latter name for L. chloris!
Cool Southern Orange-Eyed Treefrog Fact
The official SAVE THE FROGS! colors (shown below) came into existence in 2008 when I used the eyedropper tool in Photoshop to pull two colors from the Southern Orange-Eyed Treefrog featured on our logo: Green from the frog’s face and Orange from its eye.
Get Your Southern Orange-Eyed Treefrog Shirt!
While supplies last…get the most beautiful Southern Orange-Eyed Treefrog shirt ever created. All proceeds support our worldwide amphibian conservation efforts.
The author (SAVE THE FROGS! Founder Dr. Kerry Kriger) sporting a Southern Orange-Eyed Treefrog T-shirt.
How To Write An Amphibian’s Name Correctly
In an effort to (1) increase consistency; (2) improve our website visitors’ experience, and (3) reduce errors in writing amphibian’s names, we provide these guidelines on How To Write An Amphibian’s Name, and we encourage all authors in the SAVE THE FROGS! community to read, understand and implement them. You can access them in SAVE THE FROGS! Academy, which holds numerous courses of interest to frog enthusiasts.
Another interesting read is the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, which lays out guidelines for the usage of scientific names of wildlife.
Look up at the top of this browser window and you’ll see that this guy is not only our logo frog, but also our site icon (aka favicon in old school web talk)!
