Its closest living relatives appear to be O. chloronota which occurs to the north of Hose's frog's range, as well as O. livida and O. morafkai with a more limited range in Myanmar and Vietnam, respectively; these four appear to form a close-knit group wherein the northern species are barely closer to each other than Hose's frog is to any of them.

Hose's frog has been recorded from the Malay Peninsula south of the Kra Isthmus, on Phuket, Tioman, Borneo, the Batu Islands, Sumatra, Simeulue,[4] Bangka Island, Belitung and Java.

It lives in and along clear, swift streams and rivers in rainforest up to 1,700 meters ASL.

Though declining in recent times due to deforestation, it is still widely distributed and plentiful, and there is evidence that it is more tolerant of pollution and will morer readily accept secondary forest than many other frogs in the region.

But the eggs inside their gelatinous outer layer are cream-coloured without a dark hemisphere, indicating a specialised oviposition site.