Head to head
Frog vs Tree Frog
A common question is whether a tree frog is really a frog. It is. Tree frog describes a way of life, a climbing frog, rather than a separate group, and it has evolved in several frog families. The useful comparison is between a tree frog and the more familiar pond or ground frog, and it comes down mainly to the feet.
| Frog | Tree Frog | |
|---|---|---|
| Is it a frog? | Yes; the whole order Anura | Yes; a climbing type within the frogs |
| Toe pads | Usually none | Expanded adhesive discs on fingers and toes |
| Feet | Broad, strongly webbed for swimming | Less webbing; built for gripping |
| Where it lives | In or beside water year-round | Up in vegetation, coming down to breed |
| Size | Often larger and heavier | Usually small and slender |
| Typical colour | Brown, olive, or green | Often bright green and colour-changing |
| Breeding site | Ponds, ditches, streams | Ponds, or water held in bromeliads and tree holes |
| The label | A general term for any anuran | A description of a lifestyle, used across families |
Frog vs Tree Frog: common questions
Is a tree frog a real frog?
Yes, completely. A tree frog is not a different animal from a frog but a frog that has taken up a climbing life, and there is nothing about it that makes it less of a frog than a pond frog or a bullfrog. It has the tailless jumping body, the tadpole stage, the calling males, and the permeable skin that define the order Anura. What sets a tree frog apart from other frogs is a set of adaptations for climbing, chiefly the sticky discs on the toes, and these have evolved more than once in different frog families, so tree frog is a description of how a frog lives rather than the name of one branch of the family tree.
Do all climbing frogs count as tree frogs?
In everyday use, roughly yes, but the strict answer is more complicated. When biologists say tree frog they often mean specifically the family Hylidae, the large group of mostly American and Australasian tree frogs that includes the red-eyed tree frog, the gray treefrog, and White's tree frog. However, the same climbing lifestyle, with toe pads and a life spent in vegetation, has evolved separately in the African and Asian family Rhacophoridae, which includes the flying frogs, and to a lesser degree in a few other groups. These are not close relatives of the Hylidae, so calling them all tree frogs lumps together animals from different branches that happen to live the same way. For most purposes, a small frog with toe pads that lives in plants is reasonably called a tree frog.
Which is easier to keep as a pet, a tree frog or a ground frog?
Tree frogs are the more common amphibian pets, and some are among the more forgiving, particularly White's tree frog and the American green tree frog, which are hardy, long-lived, and tolerate a planted vertical tank with gentle heat and humidity. Large ground frogs such as bullfrogs and African bullfrogs are also kept but need bigger, water-heavy setups and are less interactive. Whichever type, the essentials are the same: a correctly sized enclosure, clean dechlorinated water, appropriate live insects, and very limited handling with clean wet hands, since frog skin absorbs whatever is on human hands. Captive-bred animals are strongly preferable to wild-caught, and a pet frog should never be released.