The wood frog also known as Lithobates sylvaticus or Rana sylvatica has a broad distribution over North America, reaching from the Boreal forest of Canada and Alaska to the southern Appalachians, with several notable disjunct populations including lowland eastern North Carolina.
There are a number of creatures, from reptiles and insects to marine life, that do have some level of freeze tolerance, but few can perform the trick quite like Rana sylvatica. The tiny amphibians can survive for weeks with an incredible two-thirds of their body water completely frozen—to the point where they are essentially solid frogsicles.
Even more incredible is the fact that the wood frogs can actually do stop breathing and their hearts stop beating ,entirely for days to weeks at a time. In fact, during its period of frozen winter hibernation, the frogs’ physical processes—from metabolic activity to waste production—grind to a near halt. What’s more, the frogs are likely to endure cold and multiple freeze episodes over the course of a winter, funny right.
The wood frog has a complex lifecycle that depends on multiple habitats, damp lowlands, and adjacent woodlands, and when it comes to survival no animal holds longer than the wood frog.