RANGE: California and Oregon

STATUS: The World Conservation Union lists the Foothill yellow-legged frog as Near Threatened. It is listed as a Species of Special Concern in California.

THREATS: Habitat loss, pesticides, competition/predation from nonnative species, disease, logging, mining, scouring of eggs by dams operations, and livestock grazing in riparian zones

The Foothill yellow-legged frog is a small, stream-dwelling frog with beautiful lemon-yellow coloring on its abdomen and the underside of its back legs. It lives only in the rivers and streams of central and northern California and Oregon, typically near water with rocky substrate, in riffles, and on open, sunny banks. The male frogs even vocalize underwater.  And, as you might guess, most of their diet consists of streamside residents like flies, moths, hornets, ants, beetles, grasshoppers, water striders, and snails. Foothill yellow-legged frogs are declining drastically. They have disappeared from almost half of their historic range in California and two-thirds of the Sierra Nevada. Almost all the southern California and southern Sierra populations are gone, and the species has been extirpated from Baja California and over half of its historical range in Oregon.