Aneides ferreus live in temperate and humid coastal forests of Douglas fir, cedar, alder and Sequoia; often close to clear natural or artificial. They are also abundant in areas newly logged or burned, in partnership stumps and decaying trunks with remains of bark.
They seek shelter beneath the bark of stumps and fallen trees, rotten logs, under piles of wood or remains of trunks and branches, under the bark drops on the ground, under rocks, in crevices in rocky outcrops and slopes of roads and highways. They prefer the trunks in decomposition of other types of wooden Douglas fir. Young people live among the leaf litter and bark remains.

Adults feed mainly on small insects such as isopods (Woodlice), Hymenoptera (ants) and beetles, though they also include variety of other insects like dipterans (flies), isópteros (termites), and other invertebrates such as mites, spiders, pseudoscorpions, centipede and millipedes. Sometimes, adults can also eat their own moult. Juveniles eat smaller prey, mostly mites, springtails, fliesand small beetles.

Mating is terrestrial and happens at the beginning of the spring. In the ritual, the male rubs his chin (where has the palatal gland) on the snout of the female, slashing with their tails and supports the muzzle on his back. Eventually deposits the spermatophore that the female collects and introduces in its cloaca.
At the end of June and July, females lay eggs 9-17 (in clusters of about 3 cm in diameter, occasionally in communal sunsets in humid places on Earth, including trunks decaying; there are also citations of sunsets in the forest canopy, cavities and cracks in the trunk and branches of large trees to heights of up to 30-40 m.)
The embryo is developed entirely inside the egg, and at birth (at the end of August or September), breeding is a replica in miniature of the adult.
Sometimes the female stays to the care of the eggs, or the female and a male, but is also possible to find sunsets without parental care.


• Size of the implementation: 9-17 eggs.
• Incubation period: 9 weeks.
• Maturity: 2-3 years.

United States; Forests on the coast of Oregon and some counties of Northern California.

The current distribution of the clouded salamander, is currently much smaller than it was thought that from genetic analysis, all specimens of British Columbia and the majority of California specimens have been assigned to a new species, "the wandering salamander", Aneides vagrans (Wake and Jackman, 1998).
Apparently, the populations of British Columbia (Canada) were introduced involuntarily from California during the second half of the 19th century as stowaways hidden in shipments of bark Brown oak (Lithocarpus densiflorus), material widely used at the time for the tanning of leather.

• Etymology
Genre: Aneides: Word composed of the Greek prefix "αν (a)" to designate without, no, lack by… + "ειδωλον (eidos)" aspect, figure, form, that is. Perhaps in reference to the secret nature of these salamanders, i.e., that you are not.
Species: ferreus: from Latin "color of iron" in allusion to their metallic reddish coloration.

• Status CITES: no appendix.
• IUCN Status: Near threatened (2004)

The biggest threats on their populations are urban expansion and intensive forest exploitation in short cycles of rotation, causing a severe reduction in the conditions of humidity and the amount of remains of large logs which constitute its Habitat. Its strength has been reduced by 30% in the last ten years by what this species is nearly be described as Vulnerable.