Tailed Frogs are a uniquely strange and ancient frog family. Tails are present only on males (because they're, um, not tails). They live in clear, fast moving mountain streams. I'm incredibly excited to have encountered these amazing animals for the first time in Oregon's Opal Creek wilderness.
Tailed Frogs are a uniquely strange and ancient frog family. Tails are present only on males (because they're, um, not tails). They live in clear, fast moving mountain streams. I'm incredibly excited to have encountered these amazing animals for the first time in Oregon's Opal Creek wilderness.
Tailed Frogs are a uniquely strange and ancient frog family. Tails are present only on males (because they're, um, not tails). They live in clear, fast moving mountain streams. I'm incredibly excited to have encountered these amazing animals for the first time in Oregon's Opal Creek wilderness.
Tailed Frogs are a uniquely strange and ancient frog family. Tails are present only on males (because they're, um, not tails). They live in clear, fast moving mountain streams. I'm incredibly excited to have encountered these amazing animals for the first time in Oregon's Opal Creek wilderness.
Tailed Frogs are a uniquely strange and ancient frog family. Tails are present only on males (because they're, um, not tails). They live in clear, fast moving mountain streams. I'm incredibly excited to have encountered these amazing animals for the first time in Oregon's Opal Creek wilderness.
Male with tail copulatory organ, but no dark palmar or forearm tubercles. Discovered by lantern walking at night, active in splash-zone of cascading stream during cold, frosty weather.
Huge eyes with vertical pupils, and wide round mouth. Rough skin and large fifth toe on hind feet. Male with short-tail copulatory organ, and dark palmar and forearm tubercles. Measured: SVL 38 mm (1 in.), tail organ measured 6 mm ( in.). Discovered by lantern walking, seen on moss covered tree trunk roughly 3 m (10 ft.) from flowing creek.
This was the first time I'd seen a Tailed Frog. I was photographing Pacific Giant Salamander neotenes in the pools of a long cascade of waterfalls in an old growth forest in Oregon (USA), when this beautiful light colored female swam right in front of my camera.