Critically Endangered
Mississippi gopher frog
Lithobates sevosus
Mississippi gopher frog is a frog in the family Ranidae (order Anura) — Lithobates sevosus, recorded as Critically Endangered.
Appearance
The frog's back ranges in color from black to brown or gray and is covered with dark spots and warts. Another notable feature of this secretive frog is that, when exposed to bright light or threatened, the frog will put its hands in front of its face to shield its eyes. This secretive frog is on average 3 in (8 cm) long, with a dark brown or black dorsal surface covered in warts.
The Mississippi gopher frog is a mid-sized, stocky, frog with a total body length of about 3 in (8 cm).
Range and habitat
The Mississippi gopher frog was once abundant along the Gulf Coastal Plain in lower Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama – from east of the Mississippi River Delta to Mobile Bay. Presently, only two known populations exist, with about 100 frogs to be found in Glen's Pond, Harrison County, Mississippi. The other population is less dense and spread out through the surrounding wetlands, recently found to concentrate around Mike's Pond, Jackson County, Mississippi.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Breeding
Calling males and egg sites define most frog field work. A species known from one ridge is as narrow as it sounds.
Eggs and damp skin make amphibians quick to vanish from a drained wetland or a forest stripped of litter.
In crisis
The only known remaining population of the Mississippi gopher frog consists of about 100 adult frogs from one site in Harrison County, Mississippi (Glen's Pond). While the species remains critically endangered and still relies on intensive interventions, its numbers have grown to around 600 adults, spread out over some 15 ponds and a handful of captive populations that now produce offspring. Other natural processes—such as genetic isolation, inbreeding, droughts, and floods—pose ongoing threats to the existing population.
In addition, a host of immediate anthropogenic threats confront the only remaining breeding pond of the frog: a proposed residential development, new and expanded highways, extended rail infrastructure and a proposed reservoir. Other threats include fire suppression, drought, pesticides, urban sprawl, highway construction and the decline of gopher tortoises.
Chytrid fungus, collection, and wet-forest loss are the usual pressures on frogs with a high threat category.
Mississippi gopher frog is Critically Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Mississippi gopher frog, Wikidata item Q3005076. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
