page_title: Diablo Range
section_title: Fauna
hierarchical_section_title: Diablo Range / Natural history / Fauna
caption_attribution_description: English: Three tule elk just east of Highway 101 in Basking Ridge Park, Santa Clara County, California.
context_page_description: The Diablo Range is a mountain range in the California Coast Ranges subdivision of the Pacific Coast Ranges. It is located in the eastern San Francisco Bay area south to the Salinas Valley area of northern California, the United States.
context_section_description: The Diablo Range attracts far more raptors than coastal forests, such as red tail hawks. Golden eagle nesting sites are found in the Diablo Range, reaching their highest density in southern Alameda County.
  The Bay checkerspot butterfly, a federally listed threatened species, has habitat in the Range, especially at Mount Diablo. The California tiger salamander (Ambystoma californiense), also a federally threatened species and a vulnerable species of amphibian native to Northern California, lives in ponds in the range. The northern Pacific rattlesnake is thriving, as are many ground squirrels, hares, and various species of native and nonnative rodents.
  Tule elk (Cervus canadensis ssp. nannodes) were restored to Mount Hamilton between 1978-1981 and are slowly recovering in several small herds in Santa Clara and Alameda Counties. See Mount Hamilton elk recovery. Black-tailed deer are abundant. Pronghorn, grizzly bears, and wolves were extirpated in the 1800s. There still are numerous coyotes and some of the more vital mountain lion populations in the state. There are excellent populations of bobcats and gray foxes, which depend on the chaparral habitat.
  A species of millipede, Illacme plenipes, is endemic to the southern Diablo Range. First described in 1926, then not seen again until 2005, the species has more legs than any other species of millipede, with one specimen having 750.
caption: Three tule elk just north of U.S. Highway 101 in Basking Ridge Park. The freeway is a barrier to elk migration to the Coast Range. Courtesy Craige Edgerton
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