Care Sheet Project: Poison Arrow Frogs

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This is just about Black and Green Poison Arrow Frogs, but it didn't fit in the subject.Please feel free to add!ANIMAL NAME: Black and Green Poison Arrow Frog (Dendrobates auratus)DESCRIPTION: A small day-active frog with green markings on black ground. Various colour morphs exist: green on bronce-coloured, blue, silver, turquoise markings or nearly black animals. Those colour morphs depend on the region the animals are originally from (for instance Columbia, Costa Rica, Panama, Hawaii).LIFESPAN / SIZE: The frogs range in size from 1 to 1.5 inches, the males are usually smaller than the females. They can reach an age of twenty years. SEX DIFFERENCES / SUITABILITY: As said above, males are usually smaller than females and can have thicker fingertips. It�s virtually impossible to tell the sexes apart when the frogs are under one year old. If the conditions are right, male frogs will begin to call and they defend their territory. A group of one male and two or three females will work. Other constellations are also possible, as long as there are more females than males.REPRODUCTION: The male frogs call (very quietly) and a femalefollows them to a suitable place for laying eggs, such as a bromeliad leaf or a can used for films. The female lays 5 to 10 eggs and the male will water the eggs for the next fifteen days. Then the tadpoles hatch and get carried to a small pool of water, for example in a bromeliad, by the male.The tadpoles need to be raised alone in small containers, otherwise they eat each other. They water must be changed every other day and should be about 2 inches high. The tadpoles can be fed fish food. They need about 100 days to grow up. Remember to provide them with a piece of wood or something like that when they are ready to come out of the water. The little frogs can be housed together and eat small fruit flies. They can reproduce at a age of 8 to 12 months.D. auratus can reproduce during the whole year, but you should lower the temperature in the winter a bit, to give the females a break. If you don�t want to raise the tadpole, put the eggs in the freezer.FOOD: The frogs need small food such as fruit flies, collembola or micro crickets. You will need a food supplement that provides the frogs with calcium and vitamins. How to breed fruit flies: buy some fruit flies from a pet shop (they have crippled wings and cannot fly very well). Mix together rolled oats, water, bananas and some citrus juice or vinegar until you have a thick mash. Fill the mash into some glasses or cans and put some tissue or better wood wool /excelsior on top. Add about 40 fruit flies. Put some tissue or a stocking on top, to keep the flies inside. Wait two, three weeks. Now the first fruit flies should hatch.The frogs should be fed every day.WATER: You can put a shallow water bowl in the tank, but it�s not necessary. The frogs cannot swim and drown easily in a deep bowl!TEMPERATURE: 24 � 28�C / 75 � 82 degrees, a bit less by nightHUMIDITY: 80 � 100 %, misting the tank twice every day should be enoughHOUSING: I prefer a terrarium to a tank for reptiles and amphibians, because the air circulation is better, you can access the terrarium from the front and not from above and it's much easier to controll humidity and temperature, but I�ll use the term �tank�. For a group of four frogs you need a tank measuring 30/15/15 inches in lenght/height and width (I think this equals a 30 gallon tank?).Forest bedding is suitable as substrate or you can use soil, best from a forest. Oak leaves will reduce the growth of mold and fungi. I use moss to cover the earth, dry leaves can be used too. One or two bromeliads are needed for the frogs to lay their eggs and to bathe in the pools of water the bromeliads hold. You can also use ferns, orchids and climbing plants with small leaves. If you put cork or Xaxim on the walls of the tank, these plants will overgrow the whole tank. Some thick branches or roots will be used as a look-out (D.auratus can climb very well, the name means �Golden Treeclimber�). A neon lamp gives enough light, the frogs live in the rain forest and don�t need much light. Use a under tank heater attached to the side or the bottom of the tank. UV-light is not needed. The substrate won�t need to be changed, the frog excrements will work as plant fertilizer. If you use forest soil, many micro organisms will live in the tank and keep it clean.CARE TIME: About five minutes in the morning for misting and feeding, two minutes in the evening for misting. Cleaning the water bowl twice a week: 10 minutes. Cleaning the glass of the tank every month or so: 15 minutes. A few minutes for watching the frogs checking everything is okay.HANDLING: No. Just watching. HABITS & BEHAVIOUR: D. auratus is said to be shy, I cannot confirm this. My frogs often sit in plain sight, even when they do not hunt. They have learned to come out when I shake the can containing the fruit flies. Sometimes they fight, but they are not as agressive as other poison arrow frog species.ANIMAL COMPABILITY: I have heard of co-housing D. auratus with small lizards such as anoles, but I wouldn�t try this. You can co-house several poison arrow frog species, althoug I�d leave this to experienced owners. All frogs of the Dendrobates complex can breed and cannot be co-housed!SPECIAL CONSIDERATIONS / WARINGS: Wild-caught poison arrow frogs are poisonous. Depending on the species, the poison can be deadly (Curare is made from Phyllobates terribilis, for example). Captivity-bred frogs don�t seem to be poisonous but shouldn�t be handled with scratched hands nevertheless. There is not much known about their ability to produce poison, but it�s presumed they need poisonous ants to produce it. I have touched my frogs with bare hands and am still around, but I strongly recommend to reduce those contacts to a minimum and wash hands afterwards. Better catch the frogs with gloved hands or with a small container, if you must handle them, for example when they are ill.Try to get captivity-bred frogs, they are healthier and you won�t damage the wild population. When you buy new frogs, put them in quarantine for at least four weeks and give a sample of their excrements to a vet to be tested. All poison arrow frogs are listed as endangered species. In Germany every frog needs to be registered: when the frog is born, when you move, when the frog dies. It is the same in the USA, for more information take a look at this page:http://international.fws.gov/pdf/reg.pdf Maybe someone could write something about the exact procedure?Poison arrow frogs are definitely not suitable for kids.There are many more poison arrow frog species that have different needs, you cannot use this care sheet for them. I recommend the book �Poison Arrow Frogs� by Wolfgang Schmidt and Friedrich Henkel, which I used as a source for this care sheet, but I don't know whether it's available in english. Another good book is "Poison Arrow Frogs - Their natural history and care in captivity" by Ralf Heselhaus (try ebay for this). The books by Jerry G. Walls have nice pictures and not much else.Apropos pics: my group of D. auratus bronce