# E. silverstonei



## BChambers (Sep 12, 2009)

First off-I'm new to the board so hello everyone! I've been out of the hobby for just over a decade now, but in the 90s my ex-wife and I were pretty big east coast dart breeders (some of you old-timers might remember us - out of Syracuse, NY).

Anyway, back then my unobtainable dream frog was epipedobates silverstonei, and I am wondering if there has been any progress at all in establishing that species in the hobby since that time? I did a search of the forums, and found a lot of conflicting observations-many say they are gone from this country, but others allude to some folks having them but achieving very mixed success?

So anyone have any insights? Anyone working with them now-or have in the past with no success (I'm a big believer that failures often teach us more than success)?How about you Europeans?


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## ggazonas (May 11, 2008)

BChambers said:


> First off-I'm new to the board so hello everyone! I've been out of the hobby for just over a decade now, but in the 90s my ex-wife and I were pretty big east coast dart breeders (some of you old-timers might remember us - out of Syracuse, NY).
> 
> Anyway, back then my unobtainable dream frog was epipedobates silverstonei, and I am wondering if there has been any progress at all in establishing that species in the hobby since that time? I did a search of the forums, and found a lot of conflicting observations-many say they are gone from this country, but others allude to some folks having them but achieving very mixed success?
> 
> So anyone have any insights? Anyone working with them now-or have in the past with no success (I'm a big believer that failures often teach us more than success)?How about you Europeans?



I would say that chances of obtaining them are slim to non unless if you know of anyone who has them. Obviously if they are around they are with people who don't mention the fact they own them. If you do find some, please let me know


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## Tony (Oct 13, 2008)

They are listed as "Limited Availability" at herpetologic.net


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## Jason DeSantis (Feb 2, 2006)

That has always been there. What that means is they are limited in the hobby. If they were for sale on his site they would be marked in yellow.
J


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## billschwinn (Dec 17, 2008)

I had them several years ago. I was able to breed them many times, massive size sclutches, only a few would hatch each clutch then after emerging as froglets they would live for a while but maybe no more than a couple months. I wish I could work with them again, the call of the male was very loud and nice to hear.


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## BChambers (Sep 12, 2009)

billschwinn said:


> I had them several years ago. I was able to breed them many times, massive size sclutches, only a few would hatch each clutch then after emerging as froglets they would live for a while but maybe no more than a couple months. I wish I could work with them again, the call of the male was very loud and nice to hear.


Now this is the kind of info I was hoping to get!

Did you find you had to keep them as cool as I've heard-to hear some speak of it, they practically have to be refridgerated!


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## james67 (Jun 28, 2008)

they are out there. but i dont want to name names. 

bill, i had no idea you had been working with them. 

james


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## billschwinn (Dec 17, 2008)

That is what I heard as far as temps, but I went by my motto, the animals dont read the books, so we must read the animals as far as their needs. I like simple set ups, their tank was a 30 gal tank, two fake stumps with fake plants growing out of them, a shallow pan of water and two huts. They were kept in a room where the temp fluctuated day/nite of 75 day to 70 at night, it would ocasionaly spike to 80 some days with no ill effects. They primarily bred for me in late winter , spring months, usually as a weather system was coming thru, I would mist more than usual, and they would breed the following day. The clutch size was spectacular , from 30 to 60 eggs at a time, unfortunately most did not develope.I hope this helps, My run with them ended after their light started smoldering heavily and filled the tank with smoke, they survived , but after a short period of time I lost the male, I traded the Female to a DB member who had a small group at the time, I don't think he was able to get them breeding, Bill PS- If any come around I sure would like another try!


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## Paul G (Feb 27, 2007)

I would also love to hear some more stories about these guys. Failures or success.

I would also love to get some of these guys in the future if they become available in numbers.
There seems to be something that keeps the larger Ameeregas out of the hobby.

I'm hoping maybe they will get imported again through Mark Pepper/Understory's Peru Project.

Heres a little natural history info for those interested....
Dendrobates.org - Ameerega silverstonei


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## Cutterfly (Apr 9, 2009)

Hi,
I got a breeding pair some month ago. Directly after I put them into their new housing they laid eggs.
http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/members-frogs-vivariums/43691-new-viv.html
Unfortunately I made a big mistake, so the clutch simply dried out! Just to explain this to you (and for my own justification  ) : 
A few weeks before this point I had several problems with most of my tinctorius egg clutches, they didn't develop as well as before, much mold and half developed eggs dying after several days and so on. Because the eggs always developed well when I didn't pull them immediately I thought it could be because I used airtight tupperware while the spawning houses in the tanks had much airflow. So I decided to use an old quarantine box with automated misting for my clutches, instead of using airtight tupperware as this provided much more airflow. Well, it worked wonders for me, but the misting nozzle wasn't propperly adjusted, so misting didn't cover the whole bottom of that box and the silverstonei egg clutch dried out within 2 days... 
Because there hasn't been any other egg clutch for several weeks I decided to put them into dry season. I know ameerega don't really need one and lay every 3-6 weeks... but I thought mine could have laid because the new big viv stimulated them and it could be better to stimulate them again by something like rain after a dry season.
Since about 5 days they are in rainy season and the male is calling like crazy (strange to say it always starts calling in the early morning *before* lights turn on and stops calling about 1 hour after the lights turn on...don't know why, but at least it's a nice alarm bell)
I think I'll get another egg clutch within the next weeks.
If so, I'll document anything from egg to tadpole to froglet.

Now to the temperature:
I use a mini fridge to cool down the water for the misting system to ~50 °F, but this doesn't cool down the whole tank. I just do this because I tested the effect of cold misting water with several species (tricolor highlands, azureiventris, silverstonei) and all seem to get highly stimulated by a cool shower. So I didn't remove the mini fridge after I realized it doesn't have any effect to the temperature of the tanks itself, but to the frogs.
We had a very hot summer this year (in Germany) and temperatures have been in the upper 80's for about 4 weeks. (I don't have any air condition as electricity is extremely expensive over here)
It didn't do any harm to the frogs, I even think the temperature now (68 °F) is not high enough, because always when I turn on the heating (so temperature rises to 72-75 °F) the frogs are more active. 

Hope, this has been a little helpful
greets,
CF


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## Julio (Oct 8, 2007)

I was talking to Mark Pepper about a group that he is working with, he said that any cooling is not nscesary th frogs will adapt to what ever temps you keep them at so a chiller for the water is not needed either.


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## Cutterfly (Apr 9, 2009)

Yep, that's what I experienced with mine. Seems they now favor higher temperatures over lower ones, since they adapted to the higher temps.
As I said, I don't use the fridge to cool down their housing (which is impossible, by the way), I just use it because all frogs in my collection who are known to prefer lower temperatures seem to enjoy cold rain. A welcome side effect for me is, that I don't have any problems with algae in vivs connected to this system, because the reservoir kept in the fridge is to cold. 

greets,
CF


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## Julio (Oct 8, 2007)

yeah i know, but even a cold rain shower is not nescesary.


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## BChambers (Sep 12, 2009)

Wow, this is fantastic info folk-looks like my ambition may not be completely beyond the realm of possibility

From these experiences, it looks like the big danger comes when you attempt to move an established group-shipping, change of environment, etc.


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## dendrothusiast (Sep 16, 2010)

hey guys I asked the same question a year ago on a different forum. I got a reply from a man from germany that he owned a trio that he obtained at a local show there. Im sure it started with an M and it was a long name i sure couldnt remember if my life depended on it. Apparently they have them there every year which really surprised me and left me skeptical but he sent me some photos and they were ligit. all three were silverstonei but orangish black. Maybe only the wilds are red and black and captives are orange brown? I tried to keep in contact with him as im interested in breeding them but we've lost touch months ago. Hopefully itll help you locals near germany to obtain some. Ide love to know if anybody finds some.


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## skylsdale (Sep 16, 2007)

dendrothusiast said:


> Apparently they have them there every year which really surprised me...


Not necessarily so much of a surprise: Welcome to Facebook


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## dendrothusiast (Sep 16, 2010)

damn that's awful. they've been around time and time again with the success stories i hear of people breeding them, but i always will stand by that it is a dangerous thing to remove an entire species out of nature and never should support them by buying wild caught animals.


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## danny8524ever (Jan 31, 2012)

This is my favorite of all the frogs species. It was seriously seeing pics of this one frog that made me want to collect frogs in the first place. If anyone has any information on how I can get hold of a mating pair or a trio (which would be even better) please contact me. I understand that these frogs are rare and people don't want to just throw owner's names around but if I could be put in contact with a breeder or two I would greatly appreciate just the opportunity to get some first hand advice on these beauties. Thanks.


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## Mitch (Jun 18, 2010)

danny8524ever said:


> This is my favorite of all the frogs species. It was seriously seeing pics of this one frog that made me want to collect frogs in the first place. If anyone has any information on how I can get hold of a mating pair or a trio (which would be even better) please contact me. I understand that these frogs are rare and people don't want to just throw owner's names around but if I could be put in contact with a breeder or two I would greatly appreciate just the opportunity to get some first hand advice on these beauties. Thanks.


It's your first post and you're already asking for E. silverstonei?


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## thedude (Nov 28, 2007)

They have been heavily smuggled, especially to Europe. Hopefully, people will hold off on bringing any more of the frogs from those smuggled lines and just wait for Understory to bring in their legal offspring. As has been with plenty of other frogs so far (chrome bassleri, vanzos, benedicta, other Ranitomeya, sylvatica, and now Colombian species), if we just wait then we can get some amazing frogs from legal, sustainable sources.


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## jbherpin (Oct 16, 2009)

thedude said:


> They have been heavily smuggled, especially to Europe. Hopefully, people will hold off on bringing any more of the frogs from those smuggled lines and just wait for Understory to bring in their legal offspring. As has been with plenty of other frogs so far (chrome bassleri, vanzos, benedicta, other Ranitomeya, sylvatica, and now Colombian species), if we just wait then we can get some amazing frogs from legal, sustainable sources.


Superbly stated. It is a terrible shame people will command(create demand) a species despite it's vulnerabilities, legality, etc.

JBear


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## cbreon (Apr 25, 2005)

thedude said:


> They have been heavily smuggled, especially to Europe. Hopefully, people will hold off on bringing any more of the frogs from those smuggled lines and just wait for Understory to bring in their legal offspring. As has been with plenty of other frogs so far (chrome bassleri, vanzos, benedicta, other Ranitomeya, sylvatica, and now Colombian species), if we just wait then we can get some amazing frogs from legal, sustainable sources.


Its always so sad to hear about things being heavily smuggled to the point of damaging or destroying populations. I would feel terrible if I had participated in something that destroyed a existing population. It seems sometimes people's desires get in the way of their better judgment, as I would imagine most Euro froggers and, froggers in general, would want the best for the wild pops.


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## EricM (Feb 15, 2004)

Over the years I've got to visit another froggers collection who kept and bred silverstonei in the San Diego area. The original colony around 5 frogs and over the next few years he was able to establish another group of 6. The first few years they were kept in his house and later moved into the garage, they bred in both areas and survived all year, including in the garage with no ac. He was relatively close the the ocean so the extreme temps were not as bad as inland here, probably rarely above high 80s. The frogs were moved into the garage due to the noise of the call, I could hear them 4 houses down the block, neighbors all thought he had birds in the garage. The clutch sizes were huge and he used to sit the petri dishes on the bathroom sink, which was stone and kept the eggs cool, slowing any decay or fungus. The juvies were the biggest pain and would "popcorn" around and die, I'd seen it a few times during feeding. It took him years to get the second group going due to horrible loses of the juvies. He did keep them in plastic tubs and possible some more permanant quarters would have made a difference, hard to know. The tanks were around 30-40 gallon and had many slabs of cork bark and some driftwood, tons of hiding places. All the frogs were burnt orange in color and not red like the wc ones.

Eric Anderson ( one hell of a frogger) used to produce them in nice quantities back in the late 90s, I am pretty positive he was the source of the frogs herpetologic offered.

There are some around the US hobby and in some institution collections, but the most realistic source will be UE, I think I could get lehmanni, mysteriosus, and captivus much quicker than silverstonei today.

ERic


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## SmackoftheGods (Jan 28, 2009)

Eric, if you feel like getting in to that kind of trouble, mysteriosus aren't that hard to find... especially, I understand, since they don't really have issues breeding in captivity....

If you want to see silverstonei in the hobby there's a really simple answer: wait. They are awesome frogs. It's no surprise that those new to the hobby (or from the hobby a decade or more ago) go nuts over these frogs. But the smuggling of this frog, the selling of illegal frogs to newer froggers, the selling of any difficult breeders to unestablished froggers, will not help keep the species in the hobby. There are legit breeding projects going on regarding the silverstonei (Understory has already been mentioned), but considering the difficulty in breeding them it will obviously take a while. The trick is to get these into the hands of experienced breeders. And for those who are newer to the hobby, I'd recommend working with species related to the silverstonei (bassleri and pepperi are some great frogs with some awesome colors) to rack up some experience so when your time _does_ come you have a feel for what you need to do.

As far as the burnt orange colors, who wants to wager whether or not they'll color up with some heavy supplementation of Repashy?


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## amplexed (Jun 17, 2010)

Rumor was Anderson, after distributing a decent number of froglets, only to have them die, decided that these were far from the most suitable terrarium animals; he quit breeding them.


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