Tehachapi Slender Salamander

Fascinating facts about the Tehachapi Slender Salamander

• At just 3 inches (76 mm) long, this salamander wears a coat of dark brown speckled with coppery red and silver that looks like tiny fireworks in the leaf litter. Its size makes it one of the larger members of the Batrachoseps genus.
• Unlike most vertebrates, this salamander has no lungs and lives entirely on skin-based respiration. Every breath depends on a thin film of moisture, so it only emerges when humidity spikes or rain falls.
• Endemic to Kern County, it occupies only the isolated pockets of the Piute and Tehachapi Mountains in Southern California’s Transverse Ranges. Its razor-thin geographic range highlights how a single mountain chain can cradle an entire species.
• Most of its remaining habitat sits on land owned by Tejon Ranch, a massive private property that now holds the salamander’s critical refuge.
• The International Union for Conservation of Nature lists the salamander as Endangered.

At a glance

About the Tehachapi Slender Salamander

The Tehachapi slender salamander, Batrachoseps stebbinsi, is a dark-brown plethodontid with glittering speckles of coppery red and silver, about three inches (76 mm) long, making it one of the larger members of its genus. Like other plethodontids, it lacks lungs and must keep its skin moist. It lives in damp leaf litter of the Piute and Tehachapi Mountains and emerges during high humidity or rain.

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