I wanna frog...

[nouserpif]

I have rescently discovered I have a secret love for frogs, and I would like to get 1-3... I want something cheap, small, easy, and possibly not too hard to breed. I am a total begginer to frogs, and would love tons of info on all possible species, before I pick one...
thanks!
Dan Conner

[Jeff_Favelle]

Mantella. I bred them for years. Get madagascariensis , viridis , or aurantiaca .

[nouserpif]

you wouldn't happen to have any, or know someone on the island with any, would you? They seem neat, just looked at a few caresheets...
Dan Conner

[Jeff_Favelle]

NO, I got out of frogs about 4 years ago. Try emailing Don Patterson. He knows everyone around and if someone is bringing them in or breeding them, he'll know. His buddy also breeds poison-arrow frogs. You could try them as well.

[Weather1]

Go get yourself an "eating machine" (Pacman Frog)

[Kyle Barker]

John Kirlin has em. I know he got some viridis, and he has lots of other types of frogs. Not sure what exactly he has for matellas though. Also i believe Mark Pepper has lots but hes out east.

kyle

[Duncan]

Dan,
I agree with Jeff, mantellas are great frogs. I have three M. expectata or "blue legged" mantellas and a single M. pulchra, the "beautiful mantella" (I wish I could find more of this species!). They're easy to keep (room temp. is just fine) and easy to feed (flightless fruit flies or 1 week crickets).

In my opinion if you want the easiest of the smaller terrestrial frogs though, you should try the Phantasmal poison dart frog (Epipedobates tricolor). These frogs are a brick red with pastel green pin stripes. They require a slightly warmer temp. than the mantellas but they eat even larger crickets than the mantellas and they breed like crazy; in addition they usually can be had for about $35-40 Canadian (at least you can get them in my neck of the woods for about that price). Some of the dart frog "officianados" think they are a waste of time, but they're bold, the males call like crazy, and a great entry into the world of dart frogs.

Happy New Year!
Duncan

[Jeff_Favelle]

Duncan! Back in the day pulchra's were my dream frog man! I sure would like to see some pics of yours if you have any. All this talk about frogs brings back great memories man. Frogs are the greatest. :D

[Laurier]

hey,

mantellas are great. there is only 1 problem, finding them. Since madagascare (sp) closed and than re-opened (from what i heard) mantella exportation has been very slender. they are starting to coem in but not very abundent and I am not sure if any have made it around to canada yet. I kept painted mantellas before and i prefer them over most mantellas except cowani and ruby golden mantellas. very nice frogs an if you get the chance get them because you would be suprised by how large of food they eat.

As for tri-colors. why most poison frog keepers in alberta hate tri-colors is because there are way to many here. personally I am not a big fan of the morph that is offered here but they are nice frogs. They eat large and are very bold. But if you get a male I highly suggest you keep it on the other side of the house where you sleep because they will call for 1 hour before the lights turn on till 1 hour after the lights turn off. very annoying may I add. There is also 1 problem with them. they all came from the same male and female that were imported from germany. the owner of the original pair is walter at mice and things from the last i heard but if you plan on buying these frog make sure its from him because most have been interbreed with brothers and sister for about 4 years now so deformaties should start poping up.

I also would highly nop suggest you breeding tri-colors because you won't sell them. people here are starting to use them as feeders because they can't sell them, so sad. mantellas are close to impossible to breed but i know a few people who have bred goldens, viridis and painteds. well hope this helped ya.

Laurier

ps: duncan what else do you keep always interested in knowing what frogs arei n alberta.

[Jeff_Favelle]

I found the Mantellas easier to breed than the Poisons or Red-Eyes, but the tadpoles were a nightmare. The one frog that eluded my breeding (other than that damn White's Tree Frog! I had 14 of the stupid things and they were in amplexus EVERY night for 4 months!!) was the Tomato Frog (Dyscophus). I had 12 of them for over 2 years and all I got was calling males.

[Quakezombie]

LMAO Jeff I HEAR YAH !

Breeding some species of frogs should be listed as an art form not a skill (just born that way) hehe.

After many terrariums and species my favorite is a local to here.
Grey's/Grey tree frog and Cope's tree frog
Two species,yes i know,but the only way to tell them apart is by their call or by dna.
They turn from white to almost black (orange inner leg) and were the biggest clowns by far.

Cheap ? Yes yet priceless...

[Jeff_Favelle]

STill got some? ANy pics? Can you tell them aprt just by eye-balling them?

That's great stuff Zombie! :D

[Duncan]

Hey Guys,
I've put a picture of the M. pulchra into my gallery (I couldn't get it to appear in this post!?), the photo is over a year and a half old, from when I first got him (still in his transport box) it just doesn't do him justice. I'll try to borrow a digital camera and get a more recent picture. By the way, my avatar is a pic of 2 of my expectatas (also from over a year ago).

In addition to the mantellas I have 4 cobalt blue tinc darts (I think 2 of each sex judging by toe pads, but they're still a little young to be certain) as well an assortment of other critters besides frogs (4 leo geckos, 2 fat tails, 1 odeura monilis, the "Australian velvet gecko", 4 Paramesotriton sp. newts, and a 54 and a 66 gal. aquarium full of fish ... ).

As far as the tricolors Laurier, like I said, I think they're underrated, but hey everyone's entitled to an opinion. In Edmonton, they still aren't all that common either. As far as the inbreeding thing, the 50 or 60 froglets that I've raised haven't had any problems that I'm aware of. I have a decent grasp of genetics and inbreeding in and of itself doesn't necessarily cause defects . . . despite what the banjo plucking family in the movie Deliverance suggests. It tends to increase the likelyhood of recessive traits being expressed, but in a few generations, the probability isn't that high. I agree, over many generations problems will crop up, and gene flow is necessary to diversify the gene pool, but again, in the wild, populations are often geographically and genetically isolated (they don't experience a lot of migration) and they do not have a particularly high rate of disorders (as far as I know). Yes, there are animals that do have problems because of "shallow" gene pools (cheetahs for one if I remember correctly) and even certain human populations have higher frequencies of recessive genetic disorders, but this is often because of hundreds or even thousands of years of intermarriage/genetic isolation. Yes there are exceptions, and if all the tricolors in Alberta do descend from a single pair, the potential for problems exist, but don't assume that "mutants" are guaranteed to crop up any time soon. Just my humble opinion, please feel free to disagree.
Duncan

[Jeff_Favelle]

Hey, they changed the name of madagascariensis!! That's the exact frog I used to breed!! I got at least 10 clutches and raised over a 100 froglets!! Wonder why they changed the name?

[Laurier]

hey,

jeff there are accually a hand full of species that are named the paintd mantella but they all look the same but have slight differences and come from different areas. Duncan, all the tri-colors did come from a single pair and the owner was a fellow by the name of mike williams. He was one of the guys who got me into dart frogs a few years back. But I can put information on the table on the table that has to do with genetic deformaties. I bought 2 azureus a year and a half ago from reptile world after the found out that ordering 20 azureus wasn't such a great idea. but as i was saying these 2 have showen deformaties. one is dwarfed while the other is dwarfed and has hips that are located to far back and are not in the right place causeing the frog to walk wierd. I went back to reptile world a year after i got my frogs and they had only a few frogs out and most of them were dwarfed as well. I bought another pair from a friend of mine that come from a line that has never been bred with brother and sister and at 6 months they are already larger than my 2 deformed azureus. well i hope this gives you a bit of information about deformaties. But as for tri-colors i would reccommend them but i would only buy from walter from mice and things because at least he is producing f1's.

Laurier

[Duncan]

Jeff,
A far as I know they didn't change the name of M. madagascariensis, both they and the pulchras exist! Although very similar there are some subtle differences, the main one being that the pulchra have a brown/bronze head and back, whereas the madagascariensis have a black dorsum and often brightly colored "eyebrows". Also the back legs of the madagascariensis tend to have brighter coloration and more prominant flash markings, whereas the pulchras are again brown/bronze with smaller flash markings that are less visible. Or at least that's what seems to be apparent in the photos that I've seen (and in looking at my own pulchra). The madagascariensis typically have been more available at pet stores etc. in the past than the pulchras. I think Mark Pepper has a picture of the M. pulchra on his website in his his picture gallery, and maybe the madagascariensis too (I'm not sure about the latter though). So which one do you think you had?

Laurier, that's too bad about your original azureus. Are any of your other frogs getting close to breeding age? It would be great to have an Alberta supply of azureus or other darts in the future. Anything like any of those great looking D. auratus that Mark Pepper is offering? I've been tempted but the whole shipping thing (mainly cost and cold weather) always deter me. Maybe in the spring! D. leucomelas is also on my wish list, ever kept any? I know you're interested in the egglayers/thumbnails too, any variety you're set on getting?

By the way, you're right about the call of the tricolors being loud (mine are in the basement in my reptile/fish room so its not too bad). Unlike the call of my M. expectata which are a lot quieter and sound more like sheep bleating at times!

Again, Happy New Year!
Duncan

[Laurier]

hey duncan,

accually I am getting some of the new morph of bronze and green auratus from mark because pcpc had prices that were over priced but i still wish the person who was supposed to pick me up some got them. the only frogs i have that aren't breeding age are the 2 azureus from mark. I am selling some adult surinam cobalts so i can make room for some new projects (reticulatus, pumilio, and 2 more morphs of auratus - blue, and khalua and cream). I just need to find some more fruit flies cause all of my cultures died off and crickets are always expensive.

Laurier

[Quakezombie]

No Jeff,i dont have any Grey's/Cope's anymore.
I used to keep some warm and fed through winter in a 55/gal terrarium i had geckos in but they went to live with my mother (she begged,lol).
I didnt go out and catch them (near to impossible to find them anyway). They came to visit my porch light every night (anywhere from 2 to 13 a night).

As far as telling them apart visually,no,but i did get an earfull every night,but there were always a male of each species "arguing" with the other >( ...so i know the difference(Greys are louder) ,but who is who ?!? :p

Here are a few detailed links of this plain fellow :D

http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/narcam/idguide/hylavers.htm

http://www.uwgb.edu/biodiversity/news/photo_ofthe_week/pow20010603main.htm

http://www.wildlifedepartment.com/treefrog.htm

[Jeff_Favelle]

That's cool!! :D

[Duncan]

Hey Laurier,

Fruit flies are not a problem if you're ever in Edmonton or have someone to pick up. I could easily give you a good starter culture of flightless flies. I use a very simple media too, potato flakes, powdered sugar, brewer's yeast, a bit of cider vinegar all added to equal parts water. I get lots of flies and a quart jar lasts a month or so before it starts to smell (and the fly production goes down). I always have about 8 -12 jars going at one time.

How much do you pay for crickets? I can get 1000, 1 weeks, for $25 (or 500 for $13.50) here (which is better than half of what I would pay at a pet store).

What size aquarium/terrarium are you using for you pumilios and retics (and what number of frogs per enclosure?) What kind of differences in setup compared to the tincs?

Duncan

[Laurier]

hey duncan,

I am just looking for a certain species of fruit flies and most of the ones floating around are D. hydei and I am looking for D. melanogaster. I had D. melanogaster at one time but after a while the cultures died off and now i am looking for more so if you see them around I would love to heard about it.

As for the pumilio and reticulatus question, I don't have them yet. But i will explain my set-ups I am planning on making. For the pumilio I get to take alot of time because at the earliest I can get them is september so a long wait because of the waiting list from mark pepper. But the set up will consist of 2 medium bromeliads and java moss over top of a gravel substraight (useing it as basically hydroponic's). The tank will be terrestrial because pumilio aren't arboreal like most of the smaller sized dart frogs. The reticulatus, well its my little secret where I am getting those because of how rare they but i am going to keep them in a set up just like the pumilio. because of there size i was thinking that a 10 will be perfect but i am going to make it a smaller version of the pumilio tank. I like to keep my tanks simple because after 4 years of making vivariums and something going wrong i just said that I will keep everything simple. I might set up 1 more vivarium sometime but it costs a nice hand full of cash.

as for crickets, i get right off of krickets unlimt and i get a discount because I buy so many. I think I am paying $20 for a 1000 1 weeks.

Laurier

[Duncan]

Laurier,

The flies I have are vestigial wing (stubby/useless wings as opposed to completely wingless) D. melanogaster (ordered from a biological supply company I use at work, so I know they are true melanogaster). Its kind of funny because I've been trying unsuccessfully to get hydei for a while, if you can get hydei, I'd be interested in a trade. If not, my offer of the starter culture of flies still stands.

With your dart set ups, do you use any kind of water dish/reservoir above ground, as opposed to just the high humidity of the saturated gravel base? Also how many of the pumilio/retics would you put in the 10 gallon set up you described?

Sorry, one last thing, typically from your experience/information, at what age do most dart species start to breed? Is there variation between species in terms of sexual maturity?

Thanks
Duncan

[Laurier]

hey,

i would love to come up there and pick up the flies. i will have to stay in contact with you about that. For a 10gal I would keep only 2 pumilio because both sex's are very aggressive to each other. As for reticulatus, I am not so sure on there temperment because there isn't to much info on them due to there rarety and that it was really hard to alcimate(sp) the wild caughts. But I would have to say about 5-8 due to there size. This doesnot go for all thumbnails because some are highly aggressive like imitators and ventrimaculatus have the same problem depending on the type. as for water dishes, yes i always have a water dish.

as for breeding they can start breeding at 1 year of age but you have to have the conditions right. I know breeders who have had morphs of tinc's for years and they have had a hard time finding a conditions for breeding. Once you hear the male calling ussually your on the right track or if you see the female stroking the male. but both sex's have to be ready. as you said before you are judging sexing by toepads but how old are your frogs. well hope this helps.

Laurier

[dave]

hey i think you guys missed one aspect of the guys post he wants something cheap. I would try red eye tree frogs or whites as far as i know whites arent ez to breed but there great to keep i have 4 myself if you just want a big fat beautiful frog that doesnt do anything but eat i would recommend a pac man there great and they get huge the sizeof a dinner plate i have one for sale right now but i dont ship so no luck there but youi can check out a picture right here http://www.ssnakess.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=8633 i also have more pics of my other frogs and herps in my gallary