New Records and Habitat Observations of 



Hyla andersoni Baird (Anura: Hylidae) in 



Chesterfield and Marlboro Counties, South Carolina 



Janice Heard Tardell, Richard C. Yates, 



and 



David H. Schiller 



Carolina Power and Light Company, 



Harris Energy and Environmental Center, 



Route 1, Box 327, New Hill, North Carolina 27562 



ABSTRACT. — Sixty-seven Hyla andersoni localities were found in 

 Marlboro (56) and Chesterfield (11) counties, South Carolina in 1978 

 (41) and 1979 (26). Eight sites were in electrical transmission line or 

 gas pipeline rights-of-way, fifteen in recent clearcuts, and forty-four in 

 shrub bog habitats. Hyla andersoni apparently is more widely 

 distributed in South Carolina than was previously known. There seems 

 to be potential for maintaining or increasing suitable habitat through 

 appropriate management techniques. 



INTRODUCTION 



The Pine Barrens Treefrog, Hyla andersoni, was described by Baird 

 (1854) on the basis of a specimen received at the U.S. National Museum 

 from Anderson, South Carolina. The origin of the type specimen has 

 been questioned by several authors (Neill 1947, 1957; Wright and 

 Wright 1949; Brown 1980). After the original South Carolina record, H. 

 andersoni was not found again in the state until 1950, when specimens 

 were collected in Chesterfield County near the town of Patrick and a 

 population was discovered in Kershaw County (Brown 1980). A 1975 

 survey of the Carolina Sandhills National Wildlife Refuge in Chesterfield 

 County found H. andersoni to be present at 16 localities (Garton and 

 Sill 1979). 



The breeding habitat of H. andersoni was described by Means and 

 Longden (1976) as occurring where water seeps laterally from sand- 

 capped hills, causing a sharp separation between the moisture requiring 

 shrubby-herbaceous communities in stream bottoms and the dry, pine- 

 oak-wiregrass communities of the hills and slopes. The plant com- 

 munities developing in such seepages have been described variously as 

 pocosins (Wells 1928), dismals (Kerr 1875), and bays or evergreen shrub 

 bogs (Kologiski 1977). Means and Moler (1978) differentiated between 

 adult and larval habitat of H. andersoni; shrub bogs constitute adult 

 habitat and herb bogs are appropriate larval habitat. They reported that 

 herb bogs typically occur on sandy soils upland of shrub bogs and are 

 dominated by grasses, sedges, and forbs. Herb bogs are usually wetter 

 on the surface than their shrub bog counterparts and are a transitional 



Brimleyana No. 6: 153-158. December 1981. 153 



