These frogs are mainly European, living in both central and southern Europe. Some also live in northwestern Africa and Israel. Their diets may include beetles, caterpillars, grasshoppers, flies, and other insects, as well as other types of invertebrates (in-VER-teh-brehts), which are animals without backbones. These invertebrates may include spiders, pillbugs, and snails. Although their tongu…
Olms live in southeastern Europe, and mudpuppies live in eastern North America. The Appalachian Mountains form a wedge separating the coastal waterdogs from the inland mudpuppies. Olms live in the limestone cave systems along the Adriatic Sea from western Slovenia and northeastern Italy in the north to Montenegro in the south. Most of them live in western Slovenia. Olms and mudpuppies have lo…
Torrent salamanders are small, short-tailed, greenish yellow, large-eyed salamanders. They are 3 to 4.5 inches (8 to 11 centimeters) long with a stocky body, a broad head, eyes that stick out, and a short snout. The legs are small but sturdy. The tail is short, is flat from side to side, and has a small ridge along the top. These salamanders have lungs that do not function. Torrent salamander…
This species is not considered to be at risk. It is quite common in parts of Mexico and Central America, but it is rare in the United States and only lives in a few scattered areas in Texas. For this reason, Texas Parks and Wildlife lists it as threatened. …
Lungless salamanders live in southern Canada, much of the United States, and Mexico except the north-central parts of these countries. They also live in Central America and central South America. Most of the species live in the eastern and central parts of the United States. Six species live in the middle western Mediterranean region of Europe. Lungless salamanders live in forest, woodlands, …
Members of this family live in many different watering holes including mucky swamps, small pools of water that dry up during part of the year, large ponds that are filled all year long, and slow-flowing rivers and streams. They rarely leave the water. If their pool dries up, they typically burrow into the still-wet muck at the bottom and wait for the rains to return. …
Amphiumas live in an area that extends from southeastern Virginia southward along the coastal plain and throughout Florida, westward along the coastal plain and from southwestern Alabama and all of Mississippi and Louisiana to the easternmost part of Texas and most southeastern part of Oklahoma northward to the extreme southeastern portion of Missouri. Amphiumas live in swamps, marshes, ditch…
Some caecilians live in moist soil that is rich in decayed plant matter. They also live in leaf litter and sometimes even in the lower parts of plants. Other caecilians live in water all or most of the time. Caecilians eat insects that are harmful to people. The burrowing movements of land-dwelling caecilians turn soil and thus keep it in good condition. The World Conservation Union (IUCN) li…
Asian toadfrogs live in many areas of Southeast Asia and Indonesia. Although Asian toadfrogs live in many different habitats, most tend to prefer old, thick forests that have ground covered by layers of leaves. Most of them move into clean and clear streams, usually those with slow currents, to breed. Many Asian toadfrogs eat a wide variety of invertebrates (in-VER-teh-brehts), or animals wit…
American tailed caecilians live in northern South America, including parts of Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Peru, Surinam, and Venezuela. American tailed caecilians live in tropical rainforests in moist spots full of leaf litter, rotten logs, and burrows in the soil. The larvae live mainly in streams. Larvae (LAR-vee) are animals in an early stage that change body form in …
Four species live from Europe and western Asia to northwestern Africa. The remaining seven are North American species, found from southern Mexico through the United States and to southern Canada. Spadefoot toads are burrowing frogs that live in areas with loose, often sandy soil and usually dry weather. Some, like the Plains spadefoot toad, can live in almost desert-like conditions. They come…
Asian tailed caecilians live in India, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, southern China, Thailand, Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Malay Archipelago west of Wallace's line. Asian tailed caecilians live in leaf litter and soil in tropical rainforests. Many species do well, however, in areas that have been cleared of trees for farming. Little is known about the feeding habits of Asi…
All three species of this family live in Europe and/or western Asia. The species known simply as the parsley frog or common parsley frog is found in southwestern Europe. The Caucasus parsley frog lives in Turkey and other areas near the Caspian Sea. The Iberian parsley frog lives in the southern parts of Portugal and Spain. Parsley frogs live in various moist places, often near water. Some ma…
Kerala caecilians live in the Western Ghats, which are mountains in Kerala State, which is in southern India. Kerala caecilians live in moist soil and leaf litter in rainforests and areas that have been cleared of trees within the rainforest region. These animals usually are found in moist soil near streams, marshes, and other bodies of water. Kerala caecilians eat earthworms and insects. Ker…
Buried-eyed caecilians live in Cameroon in the west of Africa and Malawi and Tanzania in the east of Africa. No caecilians of any kind have been found in central Africa. This distribution pattern is odd, because the vast region of the upper Congo seems ideally suited for caecilians. Caecilians probably live in central Africa but just have not been found. Buried-eyed caecilians live in tropica…
Ghost frogs live in and around South Africa's Drakensberg Mountains, where some of the world's highest waterfalls are found. The ghost frogs may make their homes among the forests and sometimes grasslands of the Drakensberg mountain range, which are the highest mountains in South Africa. They can be found from sea level up the mountains' steep slopes to 9,843 feet (3,000 …
Within Seychelles, these frogs live only on Mahé and Silhouette islands, and usually more than 656 feet (200 meters) above sea level, although a single Thomasset's frog was found lower on the mountain, at about 312 feet (95 meters) above sea level. Rainforests are home for all four species. The Seychelles palm frog only lives in those areas that have plenty of palms, and Thomass…
Tailless caecilians live in Central and South America; the eastern and western parts of Africa, but not the Sahara; the Seychelles; India; Sri Lanka; the Philippines; and the region that extends from southern China through the Malay Peninsula. Tailless caecilians help to control damaging insects, such as termites. Because they actively burrow, rather than following root channels or other read…
Australian ground frogs are found in Australia and much of New Guinea. Because many of these species burrow or otherwise stay out of sight during the day, people rarely see them. For some people who live in the deserts of Australia, however, a few of the burrowing species can be a good source of water. They dig up the frogs, whose bodies are plump with stored water, and suck the liquid from t…
Most of the species in this family live only in Australia, but at least two also are found in southern New Guinea. …
These frogs live in North, Central, and South America, as well as the West Indies. In North America, they can be found in Mexico and southernmost parts of the United States. One species, the gray four-eyed frog, lives farther south than any other species in the world: the Straits of Magellan at the southern tip of South America. …
As its name suggests, Chile Darwin's frog lives in Chile. In particular, its home is in the central part of the country in areas between about 160 and 1,640 feet (50 to 500 meters) above sea level. Darwin's frog lives in the same area as Chile Darwin's frog and also farther south through Chile and into far western Argentina. They can be found from sea level to about 4,900…
All six species live in different areas within the far eastern part of central and southern Brazil along the Atlantic Ocean coastline. The tiny frogs in this family live among the leaves that cover the ground of warm, humid forests. They often live in forests on mountainsides up to 2,240 feet (750 meters) above sea level. They also breed on land. Scientists are studying the pumpkin toadlet be…
Members of this family live throughout much of the world, including all continents except Antarctica. They do not naturally live in Australia, but people have introduced them there, and the toads are doing well. Most toads eat insects, spiders, and other arthropods (AR-throe-pawds). Arthropods are animals that do not have backbones, but have jointed legs. Those that live in rainforests eat qu…
Most of the frogs in this family live in moist forests or rainforests that have never been cleared. Such uncut forests are called primary forests. A few can also survive in old, now-overgrown pastures. Among the poison frogs, only one species spends its life in the water. This is the Venezuelan skunk frog that lives in small streams and has fully webbed rear toes to help it swim. …
Scientists have not studied this small frog in enough detail to learn what it eats. If it follows the pattern of the glass frogs and many other types of frogs, however, it eats small insects. The World Conservation Union (IUCN) does not consider Ruthven's frog to be at risk. It lives in an area that is seldom visited by humans, and the frog is quite common there. The frog has not …
Glass frogs can be found in North, Central, and South America. In North America, they only live in southern Mexico. Many species are found throughout Central America and in many parts of South America as far south as southern Brazil and northern Argentina. Although little research has been done on their food habits, scientists think these small frogs probably mainly eat tiny insects. The larg…
Amero-Australian treefrogs live in much of North, South, and Central America, Europe, eastern and parts of southeastern Asia, Australia, and far northern Africa. They are not found in the northern reaches of North America, where the weather is frigid, nor in extreme southern South America. …
True frogs live in much of the world, including most of North and Central America, the north end and parts of central South America, most of Europe and Asia, much of Africa, and Australia. Some members of the family are also found on islands in the ocean. Some populations, like those in much of Australia, were introduced to these areas by humans and previously did not live there. Many species…
The squeakers and cricket frogs are found throughout much of central to southern Africa, but not in the southwest portion of the continent. Some live in lowland forests and others in mountains up to 9,800 feet (3,000 meters) above sea level. The smaller frogs in this family eat invertebrates (in-VER-teh-brehts), which are animals without backbones. In particular, they eat tiny insects, spider…
Shovel-nosed frogs live underground in dry, grassy areas. During the wet season, however, the rains fill the land with small, deep pools of water, and the frogs come out to feed and to mate. They lay their eggs underground, but the tadpoles move into these pools of water or in other small ponds that remain filled with water all year and develop there. Shovel-nosed frogs may live in lowland ar…
African treefrogs live in most of central and southern Africa. Some species are also found on the large island of Madagascar and the tiny island of Seychelles, which are in the Indian Ocean east of southern Africa. Some people keep African treefrogs as pets, but most people are happy to enjoy the frogs only by listening to them calling in the wilds of Africa. …
Asian treefrogs live in southeastern Asia, the southern half of Africa, and Madagascar. In southeastern Asia, species live in southern India, Sri Lanka, central and southern China, Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Indonesia. In Africa, they live in a stretch of land across the center of the continent from about the Ivory Coast in the west to Somalia in the east, and then…
Depending on the species, narrow-mouthed frogs may live in southern North America, central and northern South America, Central America, southern Africa and Madagascar, southeast Asia including the Philippines and the East Indies, and/or northern Australia and New Guinea. Some native people in South America, New Guinea, and perhaps some other areas eat narrow-mouthed frogs, but they do not tak…
All of the species in this family live in Madagascar, a large island nation in the Indian Ocean off southern Africa. Scientists know very little about the diet of Madagascaran toadlets, but they believe the frogs are mainly insect-eaters. Although toadlets, like the red rain frog, will eat crickets in captivity, this does not necessarily mean that they normally eat crickets in the wild. The t…
Almost all salamanders live in the Northern Hemisphere. One species even lives north of the Arctic Circle. Only a few species of salamanders live south of the equator, and those live in North and South America as far south as Bolivia. Adult salamanders eat spiders, insects, worms, crustaceans such as crayfish, mollusks such as slugs and snails, fish and fish eggs, tadpoles, other salamanders,…
Sirens live in North America from the far northeastern part of Mexico north to the southwestern part of Michigan and east to Maryland. Dwarf sirens live in the southeastern part of the United States from Florida to South Carolina. Sirens and dwarf sirens live in still to slowly flowing, often swampy, water with a muddy bottom and sometimes with floating and rooted plants. Sirens and dwarf sir…
Asiatic salamanders live only in Asia. Their range extends from Japan, Taiwan, and the mainland of China westward to Afghanistan, Iran, and Kazakhstan in central Asia. To the north, Asian salamanders live on the Kamchatka peninsula, the island of Sakhalin, and in Siberia and Mongolia westward beyond the Ural Mountains. Siberian salamanders are the only Asiatic salamanders that enter European …
Asiatic giant salamanders and hellbenders live in the eastern part of China, the southern part of Japan, and the eastern part of the United States. Asiatic giant salamanders and hellbenders live in cool streams and rivers with gravel- or rock-covered bottoms. Chinese giant salamanders live in mountain streams, usually at heights less than 5,000 feet (1,500 meters) above sea level. Japanese gi…
Pacific giant salamanders live in wooded areas that have clear streams for larvae. Most of these salamanders live in coniferous woodlands, or those covered with trees that bear their seeds inside cones. These salamanders do especially well in areas with Douglas firs and redwoods. Adult Pacific giant salamanders live under rocks or logs. The larvae usually live in small, trout-free streams, bu…
Although they share New Zealand with a few other species of frogs, the members of this family are the only frogs that are actually native to New Zealand. Humans introduced, or brought in, the others, which include two species of bell frogs and a brown tree frog. New Zealand frogs live on North, Maud, Great Barrier, and Stephens Islands. Conservationists in 1997 introduced one of the four spec…
Mole salamanders live in North America from southern Canada to just south of Mexico City, Mexico. Mole salamanders live in woodlands and grasslands, including partially dry pine and juniper woodland with vernal pools, ponds, or streams for breeding. A vernal (VUHR-nehl) pool is one that forms in the spring but then dries up for the rest of the year. Species that do not go through metamorphosi…
Both species live in North America. The coastal tailed frog lives along the Pacific Ocean coastline from northern California in the United States into British Columbia in Canada, but not on Canada's Vancouver Island. The Rocky Mountain tailed frog makes its home in Idaho, western Montana, southeastern Washington, northeastern Oregon, and the most southeastern portion of British Columbi…
Newts and European salamanders live in scattered areas across the Northern Hemisphere, including western and eastern North America, Europe, Japan and other areas in Asia, and the northern part of Africa. Newts and European salamanders eat small invertebrate prey, including insects, earthworms, slugs, and snails. Invertebrates (in-VER-teh-brehts) are animals without backbones. In the water-dwe…
Fire-bellied toads and barbourulas can be found in Europe and Asia, including parts of eastern and western Russia, Ukraine, Turkey, China, and Korea. Some species also live farther south in Vietnam, Borneo, and the Philippines. The members of this family live mostly in the water. The fire-bellied toads prefer marshy areas, or small, often shallow ponds, where the water has little if any curre…
