Description: Tiger salamanders are large and stocky, 3.0 to 6.5 inches, with small eyes, broad rounded snout, no parotid glands, and tubercles on the underside of front and hind feet. The dorsum has yellow to dark olive spots and blotches (reticulation), often with irregular edges between front and hind limbs. Aquatic larvae are uniform dark colored with plume-like gills and developed tail fins.

Habitat: Cienegas, impounded cienegas, springs, livestock tanks; breeds mainly in cattle ponds or tanks. Adult, metamorphosed salamanders inhabit adjacent grassland and oak woodland terrestrial habitat when not in ponds. Mammal burrows or loosened soils outside the pond likely provide refugia for metamorphosed salamanders in the terrestrial environment, enabling them to burrow underground to avoid extreme environmental condition

Range: Range restricted to roughly 50 sites in the vicinity of the San Rafael Valley, Arizona, and possibly adjacent Mexico

Found in these States: AZ

Diet: Invertivore, Carnivore

Reproduction: Breeds as early as January or as late as early May; breeding after monsoon rains in July and August is rare. Some larvae hatched in spring metamorphose into terrestrial form from late July to early September; other individuals become sexually mature in the larval form or overwinter as immature larvae.

Status: Range restricted to roughly 50 sites in the vicinity of the San Rafael Valley, Arizona, and possibly adjacent Mexico; threatened by disease, impacts of non-native frogs and fishes, and hybridization with non-native tiger salamander subspecies.

Taxonomy: