Amphibians of the National Parks
Meet the 13 amphibians we've written up, like the Barred tiger salamander, and the national parks where you'll find them.
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Amphibian Barred tiger salamander
Ambystoma mavortium
A stout, yellow-barred salamander that spends most of the year underground and gathers in prairie ponds to breed, living around Great Sand Dunes and Badlands.
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Amphibian Boreal chorus frog
Pseudacris maculata
A finger-sized frog whose spring trill fills Rocky Mountain wetlands, and whose cells can freeze solid and still wake up.
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Amphibian California red-legged frog
Rana draytonii
The largest native frog in the western United States, with a reddish belly and legs, living in quiet ponds and creeks at Pinnacles.
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Amphibian Cascades frog
Rana cascadae
A brown, black-spotted frog of cold high-mountain meadow ponds, once common through the Cascades and now vanishing from parts of its range.
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Amphibian Coastal giant salamander
Dicamptodon tenebrosus
The largest terrestrial salamander in North America, a foot-long forest hunter that eats mice and other salamanders and can bark when it is grabbed.
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Amphibian Columbia spotted frog
Rana luteiventris
A spotted frog with a pale mustache stripe that stays active under the ice of Yellowstone and Grand Teton ponds through winter.
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Amphibian Eastern hellbender
Cryptobranchus alleganiensis
A giant, wrinkly salamander that breathes through its skin and hides under rocks in cold, clean streams at Great Smoky Mountains and New River Gorge.
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Amphibian Ensatina
Ensatina eschscholtzii
A lungless salamander that breathes through its skin, a textbook 'ring species' whose subspecies loop around California's Central Valley without quite meeting.
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Amphibian Great Plains toad
Anaxyrus cognatus
A warty prairie toad that rises from the ground by the thousands after summer rain to fill Great Sand Dunes with a buzzing, metallic trill.
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Amphibian Pacific chorus frog
Pseudacris regilla
A two-inch frog that shifts between green and brown and calls the ribbit Hollywood dubs onto night scenes everywhere, from sea level to alpine ponds.
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Amphibian Plains spadefoot
Spea bombifrons
A cat-eyed toad that digs backward into sand with a spade on each hind foot and spends nearly all year hidden underground.
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Amphibian Rough-skinned newt
Taricha granulosa
A brown, warty-skinned newt with a bright orange belly that carries enough poison to kill a person, found in ponds and wet forests across the Pacific Northwest.
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Amphibian Western toad
Anaxyrus boreas
A stout, warty toad that walks instead of hopping, with poison glands behind each eye, ranging from lowland ponds to mountain lakes across the Cascades.