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The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
"Smiley said all a frog wanted was education, and he could do ‘most anything—and I believe him. Why, I’ve seen him set Dan’l Webster down here on this floor—Dan’l Webster was the name of the frog—and sing out, ‘Flies, Dan’l, flies!’ and quicker’n you could wink he’d spring straight up and snake a fly off’n the counter there, and flop down on the floor ag’in as solid as a gob of mud, and fall to scratching the side of his head with his hind foot as indifferent as if he hadn’t no idea he’d been doin’ any more’n any frog might do. You never see a frog so modest and straightfor’ard as he was, for all he was so gifted. And when it come to fair and square jumping on a dead level, he could get over more ground at one straddle than any animal of his breed you ever see.”

-Mark Twain

Scientific Classifcation

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Amphibia
Order: Anura
Family: Ranidae
Genus: Rana
Species: aurora draytonii

Synopsis of Web Page

	The California Red-Legged Frog (Rana aurora draytonii), federally listed as a Threatened Species in 1996, is the largest native amphibian found in the state of California and in the western part of the United States.
	The California Red-Legged Frog lives in a dual environment, spending time in an aquatic and a riparian habitat. However, encroachment and greater urban sprawl has previously drained ponds and areas in which the California Red-Legged Frog lives.
	Amphibians and small mammals may contribute significantly to the diet of adult and subadult R. a. draytonii (Hayes and Tennant 1986; see also Arnold and Halliday 1986, Baldwin and Standford 1987).
	Male and female reproduction takes place between January and February in the San Francisco Bay Area (Jennings 1996) and in late November-April in all other places (USFWS 1997).
	During the warmer months the California Red-Legged Frogs live in Estivation habitats.
	The combination of habitat alteration due to years of livestock grazing, agriculture, water use patterns, and recent 4-year drought are probably reason that recent records of the California Red-Legged Frogs are lacking for much of this region (61 Federal Register 25813).
	Introduction of exotic predators was another cause for the 70 percent reduction in the California Red-Legged Frog population.
	One of the major reasons the bullfrog was introduced to California in 1896 (Jennings and Hayes, 1985) was because the California Red-Legged Frog was harvested for human consumption during the Gold Rush in California.
	Another reason for the decline of the California Red-Legged Frog is road-kill accidents.
	The California Red-Legged Frog has greatly been affected by the modification of the major waterways in Bay-Delta.
	Urbanization in the Bay-Delta and surrounding areas has posed a major threat to the California Red-Legged Frog.
	Agriculture and farming has been a cause of disruption in the California Red-Legged Frog population.
	The three primary factors leading to the 70 percent reduction in the California Red-Legged Frog population is due to (1) water diversion, (2) introduction of exotic/predatory species, and (3) habitat alteration.