In my opinion anurans don't get much prettier than the Pine Barrens treefrog.While I’m way out in western Florida, there are two treefrogs that I always try to see and photograph. One is widespread and abundant, one is localized, rather uncommon, and protected. The abundant one, the bird-voiced treefrog, Hyla avivoca, is attractive, but many other species are prettier. However, none have the wonderful ululating vocalizations that characterize the bird-voiced treefrog. This cool-gray to green treefrog attains a length of about 1½-inches and is a denizen of the great southern river-swamps. Typically, a large, irregular, dark dorsal marking is present and the limbs are dark banded. A light spot is present beneath each eye. The groin is pale yellow to pale green. Pretty? Well, kind of. But its mellow summer-night tremolo, especially persistent when conditions are overcast or stormy, pleases the ear far more than this treefrog’s color pleases the eye.

However, it is the opposite with the Pine Barrens treefrog, Hyla andersoni. There are few other anurans that can equal the Pine Barrens treefrog in color, but a lot of others equal or surpass its vocalizations. Although the Pine Barrens treefrog can and does change colors, when at its prettiest it has a bright apple-green back, a belly that shades from plum anteriorly (males have darker throats) to bright orange posteriorly and in the groin, and these two colors are separated by a broad, light-edged, plum stripe that runs from nose to groin and beyond. The plum coloration is also present on the feet and the rear of the forearms. But that this frog is primarily eye-candy (to humans) is apparent when you hear its aria of repeated nasal “quonks” that sound somewhat similar to the unmusical calls of a badly stressed goose.

Unlike the widespread bird-voiced treefrog, the Pine Barrens treefrog is present in small colonies in very precise, isolated, patches of acidic, steephead habitat, formations that are quite uncommon if Florida. It is also present in extreme southcentral Alabama, both Carolinas, and the Pine Barrens of New Jersey.