All Angles Creatures
Caudata · PlethodontidaeEntry 6,639 of 21,572
Ocoee Salamander, Desmognathus ocoee

Amphibia · Caudata

Desmognathus ocoeeNicholls, 1949

Ocoee Salamander

Photograph by Todd Pierson, CC BY-SA, via Wikimedia Commons

A nocturnal salamander reaching 110 mm nose to tail.

AmphibiaCaudataPlethodontidaeDesmognathus

Grows to
110mm
greatest recorded
Active
Nocturnal
Lives up to
10years
Lives
Aquatic, terrestrial
Body length across Plethodontidae

Longer than 57% of all species in Plethodontidae anyone has measured.

57% of 431 species are smaller43% larger
20 mmthe whole family, smallest to largest412 mm

The bar is the rank itself: its length is the share of the family this animal exceeds. The chart below is the family’s real spread, on a logarithmic scale because body length here runs from 20 to 412 mm. The solid rule is this animal. Every bar is a count of real species, and nothing on this figure is estimated.

What is known

21 sourced facts, each taken from a named scientific dataset. How to read these.

Cited from a dataset unless a row is marked otherwise.

Standing in the world

Conservation status
Least Concern
Population trend
Stable

as reported by the IUCN Red List

The animal itself

Longest recorded life
10years

Size

Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
110mm4.25 in

total length, tail included — this source reports total length for Caudata and Gymnophiona

Body mass · greatestmeasured
1.4g0.05 oz

maximum adult body mass as recorded in the source

How it lives

Eats arthropods
Unknown

a blank flag in this source means unrecorded, not absent

Eats vertebrates
Unknown
Eats plant matter
Unknown
Active
Nocturnal
Where it lives
Aquatic, terrestrial

Breeding

Reproduction
Oviparous
How the young develop
Through a larval stage
Average clutch
17

midpoint of the reported range — Oliveira, São-Pedro, Santos-Barrera, Penone, and Costa, 2017, Sci. Data, 4:170123

Eggs or young per clutch
5–29eggs
Clutches in a year
1per year
Hatchling length
2–3mm0.1–0.1 in
Mature at
3–4years
Size at maturity
28–30mm1–1.25 in

Naming and history

Described by
Nicholls
Moved to another genus · since it was first described
No
Described in
1949

Keeping one

No enclosure size is given here

Swiss law sets amphibian enclosure sizes family by family, and this family is not among the ones its table names. No figure is given rather than one borrowed from a different kind of animal.

Swiss Tierschutzverordnung (TSchV), SR 455.1, Anhang 2, Tabelle 6 — legally binding minimum enclosure sizes for amphibians, given as multiples of total body length and stated for two animals.

Feeding

0kJ per day

Worked out for an animal of 1 g, the heaviest recorded for Ocoee Salamander — so it is the top of the range, not a figure for a particular animal. Weigh yours and the number will be lower.

An upper estimate, not a feeding target, and not veterinary advice. The equation covers only what an animal burns staying alive, so a growing, gravid or recovering animal needs more — and it was measured on wild animals, which move far more than one in an enclosure. Body condition and a vet who knows the species are what a feeding decision should rest on. Where this comes from.

What nobody knows

These are not gaps in our research. No scientific dataset records them for this species — and saying so is information you cannot get from a reference that simply leaves a field out.

  • Still living
  • Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
  • Length snout to vent · adult female mean
  • Length snout to vent · adult male mean
  • Length snout to vent · adult mean
  • Female length · mean, nose to tail
  • Length nose to tail · adult male mean
  • Length nose to tail · adult mean
  • Largest female · snout to vent
  • Largest male · snout to vent
  • Largest female · shell length
  • Largest male · shell length
  • Hatchling length · snout to vent
  • Hatchling length · nose to tail
  • Largest juvenile · snout to vent
  • Largest juvenile · shell length
  • Egg length
  • Egg width
  • Body mass · a typical adult
  • Body mass · adult female, mean
  • Body mass at hatching
  • Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradient
  • Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
  • Diet
  • How it hunts
  • Gestation or incubation
  • Mean clutch · smallest reported
  • Mean clutch · largest reported
  • Clutches a year · fewest
  • Clutches a year · most
  • First breeds from · youngest recorded
  • First breeds by · oldest recorded
  • Age at first breeding · female
  • Venomous
  • Fangs
  • Body temp in the wild · lowest mean recorded
  • Body temp in the wild · highest mean recorded
  • Limbs
  • Colour on the back
  • Pattern on the back
  • Pupil
  • Sex decided by
  • Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
  • Red List criteria
  • Region
  • Biome
  • Active season · shortest recorded
  • Active season · longest recorded
  • Density · lowest recorded
  • Density · highest recorded
  • Home range · largest recorded
  • Suborder
  • Infraorder
  • Subspecies
  • Type locality
  • Habitat
  • Active in
  • Mainland or island
  • Lowest it lives · above sea level
  • Highest it lives · above sea level
  • Range size

Others in Plethodontidae

Take this data

Everything on this page is available as data under CC BY 4.0 — use it freely, credit it, no permission needed.

This species as JSON · the whole dataset

Cite this page

The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia (2026). Desmognathus ocoee. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/desmognathus-ocoee

@misc{desmognathus_ocoee_2026,
  title  = {Desmognathus ocoee},
  author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
  year   = {2026},
  url    = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/desmognathus-ocoee}
}

Sources

  1. Moura, M. R. et al. TetrapodTraits: a database of 33,281 tetrapod species. Used under CC BY 4.0. Observed values only; this encyclopedia does not publish its imputed predictions.
  2. Oliveira, B.F. et al. (2017). AmphiBIO, a global database for amphibian ecological traits. Scientific Data 4:170123. Used under CC BY 4.0.
  3. GBIF Secretariat. GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Used under CC BY 4.0. Common names aggregated from constituent checklists.
  4. Catalogue of Life (dataset 3LR), used under CC BY.