California+Red-legged+Frog

media type="custom" key="3681043" By: Crystal M.

The California Red-legged Frog can be 1 3/4-5 1/4 inches long. Their diet consists of a wide variety of invertebrates. Its typical of most frogs to prey by vision, then a large sticky tongue is used to catch the prey and bring it to It's mouth. Endemic to California and northen Baja California Ranges along the coast from Mendocino County in northern California south to north Baja California, and in land through the northen Sacramento Valley into the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains south to Tulsre county. A narrow range overlap with Rana aurora occurs in Mendocino County: Shaffer et. al. in research for their 2004 paper found only Rana aurora north of Big River, Mendocino County, both Rana aurora and Rana draytonii between Big River and Mills Creek, Mendocino County, and only Rana draytonii south of Mills creek. During the late 1800s and 1900s, the California Red-legged Frog was heavily harvested for food, with some 80,000 a year made into frog-leg meals. As their number dwindled, bullfrogs from Maryland and fForida were introduced to help the culinary demand. During the first half of the 20th century the many farms, ranches and cities that sprung up in the Red-legged Frog habitat further decimated and by 1939, most of its wetland homes had been eliminated, and by 1960 the frogs had completely disappeard from the central valley.