By MacKenzie Brower
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Where there is water, there are frogs — and Arizona is no exception.
Arizona is home to 26 species of frogs and toads, 23 of which are considered native to the state. The state amphibian is a frog as well: the Arizona Treefrog.

Arizona Treefrogs live in the northern coniferous forests of the state and are in the same family as tree frogs of central South America, according to Michael Ring with the Phoenix Herpetological Sanctuary. It is one of his favorite species of frogs in addition to the Green Toad, Sonoran Desert Toad and Couches Spadefoot.

“A lot of the time, (the Arizona Treefrogs are) bright green whereas our other species of tree frogs and most toads are desert colored. It’s really cool to go up in the higher elevation of Arizona and find a bright green tree frog hopping around,” said Brett Montgomery, a recent graduate of

Arizona State University with a master’s degree in applied biological sciences who specializes in amphibians.

Frogs have always been important to the people of Arizona because their presence means water is near, according to the Arizona Historical Society. Many Native American people in Arizona use frogs to symbolize water or rain, and the sound of frogs signals monsoon season.

“The Sonoran Desert is the wettest desert in the world,” Ring said. “We get the most rainfall of any desert. As spring starts, we’re definitely going to see plenty of amphibian action leaping into the new year with this leap year.”

Frog and toad habitats depend on the species and elevation but they always involve water. Toads that need less water are able to survive in an area and then emerge during monsoon season or spring rain events.

The most common amphibian in the state and Phoenix metropolitan is the Colorado River Toad, also called the Sonoran Desert Toad.

“They come out in force during monsoon season,” Montgomery said. “They can survive in pretty arid landscapes and water just activates them.”

Afterward, the Colorado River Toads will bury themselves and go into aestivation — a dormancy during a hot or dry period.

Colorado River Toads eat primarily beetles but are known to eat other insects and small vertebrates such as other frogs and toads, according to the Arizona Historical Society. They provide the music of summer with their croaking, but they also secrete bufotoxin, which is highly toxic to cats and dogs. Big doses of bufotoxins are even dangerous to humans and can result in heart attacks.

“It’s known very widely through folklore stories of licking frogs that have hallucinogenic toxins,” Ring said. “It’s a gorgeous frog and has big yellow eyes with these odd, horizontally slanted pupils. It looks a lot like hypnotoad from ‘Futurama.’”

It’s important to learn how to identify the Colorado River Toad. Local places such as Rattlesnake Ready can also train dogs to avoid the animal, Ring added.

If you’re not sure whether a frog or toad is toxic, the safe rule of thumb is to give it their space. Don’t touch any toad and then put your hands in your mouth, and always wash your hands after coming into physical contact. Try not to handle toads because they absorb air and water through the pores in their skin and chemicals in human hands are also toxic to them.

Many Red-spotted Toads, Couches Spadefoots and Great Plains Toads can also be found in the Phoenix metropolitan.

Red-spotted Toads have a singing chirp, that Ring says sounds orchestral like a violin. He’s once spotted 30 to 40 Red-spotted Toads gathered around a little bit of a rain puddle, or overnight accumulation of rainwater, calling to each other for courting and breeding.

“The Red-spotted Toad has perfect, circular shaped parotid glands, which is different because a lot of our toads’ parotid glands will be ovular or sausage shaped,” Montgomery said.

In the Grand Canyon National Park, the most common amphibians are the Red-spotted Toads, Canyon Treefrogs and Woodhouse Rocky Mountain Toads. They are all riparian species that rely on the Colorado River and its perennial tributaries for breeding, since their egg-masses and tadpoles are water-bound, according to the National Park Service.

Additionally, the Great Basin Spadefoot is a common species in the coniferous forests on the rim of the Grand Canyon, along with the Great Plains Toad, which is rare and seldom seen, according to the National Park Service. Northern Leopard Frogs are also native but rare to the Colorado River corridor. Efforts to reintroduce this species that experienced population declines following the building of Glen Canyon Dam are underway.

Of all groups of vertebrate animals, amphibians face the most threat of extinction, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service. Nearly a third of all amphibian species face extinction. Threats to amphibians and their habitats are pollution, wetland destruction or loss, climate change, invasive species, disease and parasites.

Road mortality and even feral cats also are threats to amphibians, according to Ring.

“Really anything that you can name, it probably has an impact on amphibians; they are very sensitive,” Montgomery said. “A lot of times with frogs it’s disease, which can be proliferated by non-native species carrying that disease and then spreading it to our native species.”
The American Bullfrog is the most threatening non-native amphibian in Arizona because it’s a big disease carrier of chytrid fungus and it eats whatever it can fit in its mouth, Montgomery said.

It will also eat other tadpoles, Ring said.

The Chiricahua Leopard Frog is one of 14 species of greatest conservation need identified in the Arizona Wildlife Conservation Strategy of the Game and Fish Department.

They’re a “true frog,” which means they need access to water continuously. Livestock grazing, urbanization, water diversion, and groundwater pumping all threaten the Chiricahua Leopard Frog, according to the Arizona Historical Society.

The Phoenix Zoo has conservation efforts to breed captive tadpoles of the Chiricahua Leopard Frog and repatriate them in the Chiricahua Mountains, according to Ring.

After 2008 was commemorated as the Year of the Frog, the global conservation community has done a lot of work to implement safety protocols such as bleaching boots and disinfecting gear between use, Ring continued.

The Year of the Frog was recognized because of widespread occurrence of chytrid fungus, which has affected more than 700 species in the past few decades and contributed to 90 possible extinctions, according to the University of Pennsylvania Medicine School of Veterinary Medicine.

Amphibians are a keystone and indicator species, Ring said. Amphibians are indicative of the health of an ecosystem. They’ve evolved over millions of years, so it’s important to make sure they are with us for centuries to come through education and advocacy.

Viewing any animals in Arizona, especially reptiles and amphibians, has a lot to do with the time of the year, the temperature and rain, according to Ring. The most important thing to remember is that in the state of Arizona people need to have a valid hunting and fishing license to interact with or collect any wild amphibian.

MacKenzie Brower can be reached at mbrower@iniusa.org. We’d like to invite our readers to submit their civil comments, pro or con, on this issue. Email AZOpinions@iniusa.org.

MacKenzie Brower
Lead News Reporter | Town of Paradise Valley mbrower@iniusa.org MacKenzie Brower has a Bachelor of Science in Journalism from Northern Arizona University and specializes in visual storytelling. She was previously the director of photography and Editor-in-Chief of The Lumberjack at NAU, breaking news intern for The Arizona Republic and column writer for FlagLive! MacKenzie studied abroad in Prague at the beginning of 2021, where she practiced landscape and portrait photography. She is passionate about protecting the world’s environment and human rights and hopes to inform social change through reporting. You can find her portfolio at mackenziebrower.photoshelter.com.