# Cryptophyllobates azureiventris - -Update 10/15/06



## elmoisfive (Dec 31, 2004)

I was all excited when I got back in town and saw a clutch of eggs under the coco hut in one of the azureiventris vivs and snapped this photo. The good news is that I have a pair in there....bad news is that this clutch looks infertile. Oh well, at least the male's colors show up nicely in the photo....Bill


----------



## dragonfrog (Feb 16, 2006)

That's a lot of eggs for a small frog!!!


----------



## Darren Meyer (May 22, 2004)

I'd like to let you know that both of the clutches I had started out like that and them started to develope !!! They look rather "milky" but have all been good ! Don't throw them out just yet , if you haven't already .
Happy frogging , 
Darren Meyer


----------



## elmoisfive (Dec 31, 2004)

Thanks for the input Darren...they are still in the viv being guarded by the male. Hopefully I'll have the same outcome as yourself. 

Bill


----------



## biocmp (Mar 7, 2006)

I'm going to ask both you and darren, do your azivents climb much? Or do they mostly stay to the ground? i've done some searching on the net, and all i have seen is ground dwelling make sure to have plenty of leaf litter etc. By the way, I am excited to see pics of these developing!


----------



## elmoisfive (Dec 31, 2004)

Well Darren, your advice as normal was very good....here is the appearance of the egg clutch this evening....nice little tadpoles.










I think I'll keep them out of the viv now and hatch them out. Funny how the eggs look so funky at first...are there any others that appear that way prior to showing signs of being fertile?

Bill


----------



## Jordan B (Oct 8, 2004)

Yay Bill!!!!!!!


----------



## Homer (Feb 15, 2004)

Congrats, Bill! That is great news. I had the same reaction the first time my leucs laid eggs . . . they were a cloudy gray just about like that. They turned out to be fine as well.


----------



## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

Possibly the other member of the same genus lol. These guys are so oddball they got their own genus, shouldn't be too suprising they have some funk


----------



## elmoisfive (Dec 31, 2004)

Well the tadpoles started hatching out today...oddly enough despite the fact that the tadpoles continued to mature and darken in appearance, the egg sacs surrounding them continued to have a very milky look to them. Almost as if the eggs were on the edge of molding over as I've seen with some fertile eggs in the past. So I was a bit on the edge of my seat, telling myself these frogs have odd looking eggs so all was well but wondering whether the entire clutch was about to go bad. 

Bill


----------



## elmoisfive (Dec 31, 2004)

Well after faithfully laying 3 clutches under the cocohut and having them ultimately removed by yours truly :wink: I suppose my pair are trying to fake me out. They have been 'missing' for almost 2 days now and I was beginning to get worried...I mean how do you misplace 2 frogs their size in a moderately planted 15H?

Well I'm looking around and had been studying a fairly large peperomia capreata whose leaves are virtually touching the glass top at this point and I notice that one leave is up against a back rear corner. Shine a light in there and voila...both frogs.

What they were up to is clear from this photo...the male really amuses me as to how well he guards the eggs.










The tadpoles from the earlier clutches are growing rapidly...sort of remind me of epips in terms of their early growth spurt and some are developing color that I'm having difficulty capturing on camera. 

Given that they've laid 4 clutches over the course of a month and each clutch averages 10-12 tads, this could become a very busy fall :roll: 

Bill


----------



## Ryan (Feb 18, 2004)

Awesome, im amazed how good success people are having in comparison to the past im ports(years ago)


----------



## Dancing frogs (Feb 20, 2004)

Ryan said:


> Awesome, im amazed how good success people are having in comparison to the past im ports(years ago)


I have a theory as to why...someone feel free to move this post if it seem like a Hijack...

I recall some long time froggers talking of the difficulty (in the past) of finding a female...seems they were few and far between.

I also recall (reading) that these are kind of tough to find in the wild...

So if the first imports, way back when, were straight wild caught, one would think males would be easier to find, due to their call (or maybee not, I don't know if these make an "audible" call)...then females would be sparse in the import populations.

With the recent farm raised imports, because they are raised in captivity, perhaps we are getting a better female/male ratio, due to not having to hunt them...

Just a thought!


----------



## Roadrunner (Mar 6, 2004)

no, the first 50 or so i recall were brought in from canada captive born. i think it may have been temperatures that produced all males, again just a theory.
i dont ever remember seeing them imported as w/c. then again i dont know that many importers.


----------



## Dendro Dave (Aug 2, 2005)

Actually all the frogs from Sean were born in S. America, shipped..some tested for chyrid, all treated for general "stuff" (i think)...and acclimated then shipped to us (me...oh and some others) Now he is having CB ventris success though which is good.

As far as the farm operation goes i think its a mix of large greenhouse like enclosures....collecting from artifical egg sites placed on "farmers" lands....and maybe some wc from those lands (or others places maybe). Really one of the people more in the know would, well....know better then me 

Understorys were same deal i think for the most part. They are being shipped to canada though then to florida, held....then shipped to us (none for me this time)

Both are holding back some of the imports for their own breeding colonies though.


EDIT: I forgot... i think the azureventris were imported atleast once a few years back, but most if not all fell out of the hobby....The black bassleri from Sean and the orange headed black bassleri from Mark are the first to ever come in (legally atleast). So are some of triv morphs i think. A few of the other frogs brought in may also be the first of their species/morph/locality legally imported also...but i cant remember/dont know 

Anyways good work Bill....maybe i'll pick a few of these up also when i get the bassleri and trivs


----------



## Dancing frogs (Feb 20, 2004)

frogfarm said:


> no, the first 50 or so i recall were brought in from canada captive born. i think it may have been temperatures that produced all males, again just a theory.
> i dont ever remember seeing them imported as w/c. then again i dont know that many importers.


Well there goes that theory!


----------



## Roadrunner (Mar 6, 2004)

the shipment i was referring to were cb in canada. i realize how these ones are being bred and brought in. 
i think only 1 or 2 people thought they got females and they may have been males that didnt call then. all 6 of mine turned out to be males and i was able to pick thru them.


----------



## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

Its been implied that these animals are found in in very male heavy populations in the wild. Other PDFs have similar things... male heavy seems to be the deal with such frogs as Basti pums and such. And just because they are male heavy in the wild doens't mean they are easier to find... as stated on the dendrobates.org website the frogs were usually heard rather than seen, and very hard to get to. In captivity, when females were found, they actually ended up being rather prolific. Unfortunately a rather prolific frog tends towards strong trends... a not so flashy frog that was highly productive makes for stronger trends, not a good thing for a species with such a crazy sex ratio... when they went thru the unpopular phase they lost the females and *poof*. We had to wait 15+ years for them to be imported again.


----------



## Dendro Dave (Aug 2, 2005)

I havent heard of any cb in canada, nor even any being imported there. Understory is the only one i know of importing the peru frogs(in canada) and they havent done this species yet (as far as i know)


----------



## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

you have to remember, these animals were a long while ago, these people are likely not around in the hobby anymore...


----------



## Dendro Dave (Aug 2, 2005)

Oh im was/am confused as to wether we were talking the old imports from way back or the new ones


----------



## Roadrunner (Mar 6, 2004)

i think 8 years ago. i was trying to find one a year or 2 back for taran grant and found 2 but the person thought he had a pair and wouldnt give one up for research. i dont blame him but never heard back from him as to whether he had any luck. 
the person who bred them in canada is still around although i havent heard from him in years and dont know if he ever produced females or if the pair died or what actually happened.


----------



## Catfur (Oct 5, 2004)

According to my hearsay, the breeder in Canada who produced so many years ago lost his female (also years ago), and was unable to find another to replace her, despite contacting as many of the people he had sold offspring to as he could (they all had only males).


----------



## elmoisfive (Dec 31, 2004)

Hmmmm now I'm wondering what I can do to try to keep the sex ratio from being so heavily skewed towards males :? 

Bill


----------



## sbreland (May 4, 2006)

Wow Bill, sounds more and more like you got a helluva score by getting a female.


----------



## Dancing frogs (Feb 20, 2004)

Keep up the good work!


----------



## elmoisfive (Dec 31, 2004)

sbreland said:


> Wow Bill, sounds more and more like you got a helluva score by getting a female.


\

Well Darren Meyer and Sean Stewart obviously have at least one female (maybe more) as well. So what did INHIBIO do differently that they were able to avoid producing all males? Producing from WC adults? Locale that they obtained the frogs and/or eggs from? How the tadpoles were raised?

Bill


----------



## Roadrunner (Mar 6, 2004)

temperature is my guess.


----------



## Dancing frogs (Feb 20, 2004)

I think an expert has stated that in most frogs, sex determination has nothing to do with temperature.

Someone else has stated (I think it was these) that the INIBCO imports look a little different than the "old" morph...perhaps the "old" morph just ends up being really skewed by way of genetics?

It will be interesting to see the outcome of these offspring...for sure!


----------



## Ben_C (Jun 25, 2004)

That would be very interesting if it was temperature. However, to date, all amphibians (that I am aware of) studied have expressed a genetic system of sex determination. 
Perhaps the temperature of the water is affecting the partial pressure of oxygen or something that prevents females from surviving...that would be really interesting!
I'd be willing to bet that a lot of these 'males' in the hobby are females though...
~B


----------



## Roadrunner (Mar 6, 2004)

are you saying that females call too and people are just writing them off too early?

i just figured the stability of indoor temps may have been very different than their habitat in peru depending on elevation. i dont know then.
what about immotility of female sperm(if the male determines sex) at a higher or lower temp than male sperm or just a bias rather than complete immotility. maybe hormone mimics from additives to the water whether it be municipal, filtration or leechates from plastics? seems a species produced that many males to one female it has something to do w/ captive conditions or it would die out. i could see females being produced at a certain temperature as a que for an eventuel abundance of bugs in a certain area or something. other than that i cant come up w/ a reason other than seasonal for such a heavy skew.


----------



## Catfur (Oct 5, 2004)

Since so many (virtually all?) of the old azuris came from that one guy in Canada, is it possible that he just had a bum male (with bad female sperm)?


----------



## Jason DeSantis (Feb 2, 2006)

*frogs*

The real qeustion here is when are these beautiful frogletts going to be up for sale. Can I get first dibs :lol: Anyway great looking frogs and good job securing their future in the hobby.
Jason


----------



## Dancing frogs (Feb 20, 2004)

Catfur said:


> Since so many (virtually all?) of the old azuris came from that one guy in Canada, is it possible that he just had a bum male (with bad female sperm)?


That sounds like a good possibility, but what if he had multiple males also (I thought I heard he had a ton of males as well)...Or a bum female that only produced mostly males.


----------



## elmoisfive (Dec 31, 2004)

At day 27, the tadpoles are starting to sprout back legs though they are still pretty small at this point and closely tucked into the tail region.

So apparently here is what their maximum size ends up being.....

27 day old azureiventris tad compared to U.S. quarter









They grow pretty rapidly though from their birthing size reminding me a lot of how quickly tricolor tads develop....

2 day old azureiventris tad compared to U.S. quarter









I'm estimating another month before they come out of the water but time will tell.

Bill


----------



## Darren Meyer (May 22, 2004)

Hey Bill are your tads all white and pink ?
Most of mine are starting to think I've got a bunch of Albinos :shock: 
From my most recient clutches though my tads appear just like the ones you pictured above .
Happy frogging , 
Darren Meyer


----------



## elmoisfive (Dec 31, 2004)

Darren,

I have a few tads that are distinctly lighter in color than the ones pictured. I had not thought of them as white and pink but they are definitely lighter. Nothing that would suggest albinos though at this point.

It will be interesting to see how your white and pink ones turn out.

Good luck and keep us updated.

Bill


----------



## elmoisfive (Dec 31, 2004)

This photo shows the early egg development pretty well so I thought I would share it with the board. I'm still weirded out everytime I look at the egg clutch and see this cloudy hazy mass that looks like it's on the verge of going bad. With any other PDF it would be time to mourn but it seems quite normal for this frog.

Bill


----------



## dragonfrog (Feb 16, 2006)

That third egg on the left?
That one is mine. Call me in a few months.
Seriously!!


----------



## elmoisfive (Dec 31, 2004)

Papa has been busy today. This is the first time that I've let the frogs keep the eggs in the viv for the entire period. Incubation time from laying to hatching out was 12 days.










It will be interesting to see how long he carries them around before dropping them off.

Bill


----------



## Dancing frogs (Feb 20, 2004)

Wow...can you imagine what that would feel like? :shock:


----------



## c'est ma (Sep 11, 2004)

Bill, you post the coolest pics!


----------



## elmoisfive (Dec 31, 2004)

Thanks Diane but the frogs are doing all the hard work...I just get to watch. For some of these frogs that are more recent to the US hobby or are less well known, I'm trying to document as much as possible for others to use the info if desired. 

Bill


----------



## Guest (Sep 27, 2006)

elmoisfive said:


> Thanks Diane but the frogs are doing all the hard work...I just get to watch. For some of these frogs that are more recent to the US hobby or are less well known, I'm trying to document as much as possible for others to use the info if desired.
> 
> Bill


i would love to watch that show :lol: you always have some great pics Bill. your frogs must love you to let you get that close all the time without running away. 

i commend you on your documentation efforts. hopefully this will help in getting these (and other rarities) into the hobby much more succesfully.


----------



## Dancing frogs (Feb 20, 2004)

elmoisfive said:


> For some of these frogs that are more recent to the US hobby or are less well known, I'm trying to document as much as possible for others to use the info if desired.
> 
> Bill


Excellent idea Bill...in that case, how about a pic of the whole viv, with arrows or circles indicating nesting spots?


----------



## elmoisfive (Dec 31, 2004)

Well as I predicted, the male decided to deposit most of the tadpoles while I was away at MWFF but I did catch him releasing the final few. Here is a pic of the last one getting ready to go into the water plus a sibling that had just slipped in (caught at the bottom of the picture).

Enjoy.

Bill










P.S. Brian I haven't forgotten your request about the viv...it's on the list of things to do!


----------



## kyle1745 (Feb 15, 2004)

Very cool, and that one picture I think he is saying "see these eggs? not yours!"


----------



## Jordan B (Oct 8, 2004)

Neat Bill!


----------



## elmoisfive (Dec 31, 2004)

Well just one day after the male released the last two tads into the water, he and the female were under the cocohut producing another clutch. So for this round, the cycle time in the viv from one egg clutch to the next was 18 days. 

The tadpoles from the previous clutch hatched out after 12 days and the male carried some of them around for 5 days :shock: These guys are turning out to be really interesting little frogs.

Bill


----------



## Guest (Oct 4, 2006)

elmoisfive said:


> So for this round, the cycle time in the viv from one egg clutch to the next was 18 days.
> 
> The tadpoles from the previous clutch hatched out after 12 days and the male carried some of them around for 5 days :shock: These guys are turning out to be really interesting little frogs.
> 
> Bill



sounds like they are devoting a lot of time to baby makin' :lol: thats good for the hobby, and im sure very fun to watch. heck, its fun for me watching through pictures


----------



## OneTwentySix (Nov 11, 2004)

How many tads do you have going (of the Azureivents), and what kind of tadpole/egg survivorship are you seeing, Bill?


----------



## elmoisfive (Dec 31, 2004)

Peter,

I have 53 tads and so far the egg/tadpole success rate has been close to 100% (actually I can't remember any losses but there may have been one or two)....these little characters seem to be quite tough.

Front legs are popping as we speak on the oldest tads 

Bill


----------



## elmoisfive (Dec 31, 2004)

Finally per Brian Sexton's request, here is a photo of the breeding viv. A 15 gallon high... the cocohut where most of the action has occurred is pretty self evident and I have indicated with an arrow the leaf that eggs were deposited on for one clutch (you can still make out the egg jelly on the leaf). That particular clutch yielded 15 tads,up from the 11 to 13 seen in previous clutches.

The female is sitting perched on the cocohut in this shot...she is a bit larger than the male and given the known dimensions for a 15 gallon, you get a sense of the frog size.

Bill


----------



## elmoisfive (Dec 31, 2004)

The first of what I hope are many brave explorers crawled out of the water today....nice orange on this little guy that I hope that he keeps....

Bill


----------



## c'est ma (Sep 11, 2004)

This saga just gets better and better!

9/17/06: "I'm estimating another month before they come out of the water but time will tell. "

Time told you were off by nearly 2 weeks...so these guys seem to show more rapid development than you're used to in other spp?

Someone point me to some thread that talks about their habitat in the wild...


----------



## elmoisfive (Dec 31, 2004)

Yes off by a wee bit timing wise but as Darren Meyer has already shared with the board, these characters have an urge to leave the water pretty quickly (reminds me of Epips) after front legs develop. Most thumbnails, tincs, leucs, auratus might venture out of the water briefly but usually wait for most of the tail to absorb before permanently coming onto land.

45 days from hatching to coming out of the water :shock: 

Bill


----------



## xfrogx (Jul 5, 2006)

Man bill, those things are gettin it on. cute little half tad half froglet I must say. good luck with all of those guys.


----------



## elmoisfive (Dec 31, 2004)

A few new shots of the azureiventris taken tonight....

Froglets exploring their new grow up viv...these little guys are between 1-2 weeks out of the water and doing well.









Latest tadpack showing male with tads and his lady watching closely









Additional shot of male with tads











Bill


----------



## jsagcincy (May 2, 2005)

Bill, you continue to get great shots. Thanks for sharing.


----------



## Raymond (Aug 26, 2006)

Those are some great shots with the male carrying all those tads. 

Congradulations on the new froglets. They certainly are lookers. Looks like a species I would be potentially be interested in sometime in the future.


----------



## elmoisfive (Dec 31, 2004)

Daddy had himself another clutch hidden away up in the pepperomia and is ready to tote another group of kids off to the water tonight....

Bill


----------



## Jordan B (Oct 8, 2004)

Bill,
Are you running a sweatshop down there or something? The amount of breeding these guys are doing for you is simply amazing! Great work. 

Jordan


----------



## Guest (Nov 2, 2006)

Wow!!! Talk about having a heavy load on your back !!!! Great Job !!


----------



## dragonfrog (Feb 16, 2006)

So how many frogletts do you have now?


----------



## elmoisfive (Dec 31, 2004)

30 froglets out of the water with another cohort ready to hit the shore within days.

Bill


----------



## Dendro Dave (Aug 2, 2005)

no more bassleri or trivi updates? ;(


----------

