Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
For you frogger wannabes
I guess my faux FAQ on poison dart frogs didn’t answer all your questions. Here’s a real FAQ for you would-be froggers.
Lyvvie wants to know what they sound like. Here’s one wav file, and here’s a page with six different calls (with information on which species makes which call). I’m partial to the bicolors and the leucomelas. The Arizona Dendrobate Ranch site also has a short FAQ on poison dart frogs (pdfs). Here are more bicolors — damn, they’re cute.
Crystal asks whether dart frogs lose their toxicity in captivity. That’s correct. We think they concentrate some plant toxin (an alkaloid, perhaps) present in the guts of the insects they eat in the wild. Some species retain a bit of their toxicity in captivity, but I’ve read disagreeing comments on this point.
Darla wants to know if they are tough to keep. Except for their food supply, they’re really not much more work than freshwater fish. You’ll need a ten gallon aquarium or larger, a false bottom setup, appropriate terrarium plants, distilled water, a heater. Keep them at the right temperature, provide a high humidity tank with lots of hiding places, and feed them at least 3 or 4 times a week, and they will be happy little frogs.
A note on the plants: frogs are sensitive to the pesticides which are found on most store-bought terrarium plants. It may not be possible to wash away some of these pesticides. Consequently, we buy our terrarium plants from Black Jungle.
Unless you have a ready supply of termites (and you had damn well better be sure the termites haven’t been eating pesticide-contaminated wood), you will need to raise fruitflies for your frogs. I can post Karen’s fly-raising information, if you like, or I can email it to you when you’re ready to get started. You need to have your fly-raising operation up and running BEFORE you get your frogs. Important resources for fly-raising: Ed’s Fly Meat and Carolina Biological Supply Company.
Do your research. PDF hobbyists have put an enormous amount of information on the web — lots and lots of FAQs, most better than this paltry post of mine. There’s information out there on raising flies, constructing terrariums, mating frogs and raising them from egg to froglet. You name it, it’s out there. But the one thing I would do (and, in fact, did do): lurk on FrogNet for a while. Join FrogNet’s mailing list and read, read, read. Ask questions. They’re a varied group, from ten-year-old kids to field biologists, and they’re very helpful to newbies.
They’re not smelly, by the way.
D.
P.S.: We will be taking a day-trip down to Eureka today, so I won’t be able to respond to any questions until tomorrow. We’re going to the Kinetic Sculpture Race — yippee!
so why were my guys so stinky?
We’d better not have any more termites….
Thanks bunches for the info, Doug! We wouldn’t be getting any until we’re back in TX (don’t want to have to get rid of them again in just a couple years, and I suspect customs wouldn’t appreciate us trying to take them back with us, even if they’d survive the trip), but this would be way cool for when we go back.
Have a good trip, Doug! Bring back pix.
I’m in Eureka, writing this in the ‘business center’ of the Bayshore Best Western. Using, God help me, Internet Explorer to browse at 286-speed. Oh, the pain.
Kate: bigger frogs, bigger poops. Also, if they have been eating fish, you can expect stinky poops. PDFs are small (usually not larger than one inch) and eat a nonsmelly food item (fruitflies). Hence, no stench.
Darla, I think I remembered the digital camera! One question: why in heaven’s name would you move back to TEXAS? How about a more civilized state, like Oregon?
I’ve had plenty of rain here in Germany. Thanks, anyway. 😉
I know, it’s odd. I’m from Michigan and Carl’s from Germany. San Antonio is the first place where we’ve both felt at home. We’re staying.