Ecology: The habitat of the Tailed Frog is cold, fast-moving streams with cobble stone bottoms.  Tailed frogs are mostly aquatic, but adults may emerge during cool, wet conditions to forage on land.  Breeding season lasts from May through September, and females deposit their eggs in strings under rocks in fast-moving streams.  Larvae take 1 to 4 years to metamorphose in the cool, fast-moving mountain streams (Bull and Carter, 1996 in Krakauer, 2000).
 

Population Trends and Possible Threats: Habitat loss and modification due to road building and timber harvesting may be contributing to Tailed frog decline.  Increased sediment in streams fills in the stream bottoms and reduces habitat for Tailed from larve.  According to a study done in California by Bull and Carter (1996), the presence of a tree-lined buffer zone around Tailed frog habitat was significantly correlated with Tailed Frog abundance, but overall logging within the watershed showed a non-significant relationship.  The introduction of predatory game fish to Pacific Northwest wetlands may not be as much of a threat to Tailed Frogs as it is to other amphibians because Tailed Frogs tend to not to inhabit areas with those fish (Orchard, 1992 in Krakauer, 2000).
 
 

Current Distribution: Tailed Frogs range along the Pacific coast of North America from southern British Columbia to northern California.  Extending into northern and central Idaho and western Montana (Nussbaum et al., 1983 in Krakauer, 2000).

Click on map to enlarge
 
 
 
 

References:

Bull, E.L., and B.E. Carter. (1996). Tailed Frogs: Distribution, Ecology, and Association with Timber Harvest in Northeastern Oregon. United States Forest Service Research Paper, (497), 1-12.

Krakauer, A. AmphibiaWeb page - Ascaphus truei.  Online: http://elib.cs.berkeley.edu/aw. (Accessed 8/1/2000)

Nussbaum, R.A. Brodie, E.D. Jr., and Storm, R.M. (1983). Amphibians and Reptiles of the Pacific Northwest. University of Idaho Press, Moscow, Idaho.

Orchard, S.A. (1992). Amphibian population declines in British Columbia. Declines in Canadian amphibian populations: designing a national monitoring strategy. Bishop, C.A. and K.E. Petit, eds, Canadian Wildlife Service, 10-13.
                                                (Available at the University of Washington Libraries)

Last updated October 24, 2001