# In your dart frog breeding experience…



## Stephanie Nielsen (Nov 23, 2021)

Those who have bred their dart frogs, what percentage of tadpoles make it to adult frogs? 

I’m curious what people have experienced so I don’t get my hopes up, as I am a very soft gal & first time dart frog owner / tadpole-raiser. 

Is there a benchmark where they have a solid chance at growing up from then on? 

My frogs are R. imitators & a newly adult & paired frogs. Thanks 🐸


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## Tijl (Feb 28, 2019)

98-99 out of a hundred a year. At least for the ones handraised. It's 3 pairs of Tinctorious and a pair of Terribilis I work with. 

Oophaga vary on the species or morph, but there is no way to have full control on the tadpoled themselves.


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## JasonE (Feb 7, 2011)

If we're talking fully developed tadpoles, then like 99.9999%. Most failures that happen, happen during egg development.

Edit: I'm excluding any communually raised tadpoles here.


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## Fahad (Aug 25, 2019)

I'd say about 98% off the top of my head -- vast majority of failures are tadpoles that simply don't morph. They live out their lives in the water, the longest for just under a year maybe? The odd froglet may morph with some kind of developmental abnormality -- you generally know right away and they don't last very long. 

It's a statistical thing since you seem to see a little more of everything the higher the breeding volume -- including interesting or good things, like unusual colours or patterns or tadpoles that mysteriously morph at ridiculously high speed and grow into healthy frogs.

Healthy parents = healthy offspring. Vitamin A supplementation for breeding adults is important.


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## Socratic Monologue (Apr 7, 2018)

Fahad said:


> vast majority of failures are tadpoles that simply don't morph. They live out their lives in the water, the longest for just under a year maybe?


Methuselah tads. I've had two that I can recall, which given how many tads I've artificially raised is statistically too high. Very strange.


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## JasonE (Feb 7, 2011)

Fahad said:


> I'd say about 98% off the top of my head -- vast majority of failures are tadpoles that simply don't morph. They live out their lives in the water, the longest for just under a year maybe?


I had a Costa Rican auratus that lived for almost 3 years as a tadpole. He got as big as a bullfrog tad. I was a little sad when he passed.


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## Louis (Apr 23, 2014)

Socratic Monologue said:


> Methuselah tads. I've had two that I can recall, which given how many tads I've artificially raised is statistically too high. Very strange.


We get a lot of methuselah tads of our local frog species occuring naturally here in Scotland as some tend to overwinter as tadpoles rather than completing their development from tadpole to frog in a matter of weeks. Of those a few will then stay in the water for a year or more and can get incredibly large relative to their normal size at the point of morphing into a frog.
I removed one from the wild that was so large I thought it may have been a released pet or an invasive american bullfrog tadpole and in response to the warmer temperatures, or some other environmental trigger, it immediately transformed into a frog far faster than they would under normal circumstances. It was our common species and I'm 110% sure on the identification but what was _really_ interesting was that physically it appeared identical to an adult frog although slightly smaller. It's hard to describe but I'm sure some of you will know what I mean when I say that newly morphed froglets aren't exactly perfect miniature replicas of an adult - this one was indistinguishable from an adult frog of our common species Rana temporaria and that's not usually the case when they emerge, it evidently just morphed straight into an adult because it had the energy reserves to do so.


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## PersephonesChild (11 mo ago)

Louis said:


> We get a lot of methuselah tads of our local frog species occuring naturally here in Scotland as some tend to overwinter as tadpoles rather than completing their development from tadpole to frog in a matter of weeks. Of those a few will then stay in the water for a year or more and can get incredibly large relative to their normal size at the point of morphing into a frog.
> I removed one from the wild that was so large I thought it may have been a released pet or an invasive american bullfrog tadpole and in response to the warmer temperatures, or some other environmental trigger, it immediately transformed into a frog far faster than they would under normal circumstances. It was our common species and I'm 110% sure on the identification but what was _really_ interesting was that physically it appeared identical to an adult frog although slightly smaller. It's hard to describe but I'm sure some of you will know what I mean when I say that newly morphed froglets aren't exactly perfect miniature replicas of an adult - this one was indistinguishable from an adult frog of our common species Rana temporaria and that's not usually the case when they emerge, it evidently just morphed straight into an adult because it had the energy reserves to do so.


I've never heard of "methuselah tadpoles" before, but now I'm super curious. Has anyone studied if there are triggers, like your experience with temperatures, that will cause them to morph?


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## Fahad (Aug 25, 2019)

PersephonesChild said:


> I've never heard of "methuselah tadpoles" before, but now I'm super curious. Has anyone studied if there are triggers, like your experience with temperatures, that will cause them to morph?


I have heard anecdotal accounts of iodine (I don't know how much) kick-starting metamorphosis but don't know if it's effective, reliable or safe. The usual environmental parameters are unlikely to have any effect given that tadpoles raised under identical conditions morph normally. The issues seem to be internal i.e. genetic and/or hormonal.


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## PersephonesChild (11 mo ago)

Fahad said:


> I have heard anecdotal accounts of iodine (I don't know how much) kick-starting metamorphosis but don't know if it's effective, reliable or safe. The usual environmental parameters are unlikely to have any effect given that tadpoles raised under identical conditions morph normally. The issues seem to be internal i.e. genetic and/or hormonal.


I know iodine is sometimes used to induce axolotls to morph, though it's considered highly controversial at best, and recklessly cruel by many, due to the very significant potential to poison the salamander in the process. That does however imply that under highly controlled doses it might work; not that I'd go advising random people to dump iodine into tadpole tanks given the harm that it's already caused in the axolotl community.


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## Socratic Monologue (Apr 7, 2018)

If a person had a regular problem in their captive breeding program that they wanted to address, I would imagine that switching to a food containing a higher proportion of marine algae (e.g. Soylent Green) would be a prudent way to proceed. Dripping Lugol's into tad cups wouldn't end well.

@Stephanie Nielsen , I hope these wandering discussions are relevant enough to your questions. If not, just drop a hint.


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## Louis (Apr 23, 2014)

PersephonesChild said:


> I've never heard of "methuselah tadpoles" before, but now I'm super curious. Has anyone studied if there are triggers, like your experience with temperatures, that will cause them to morph?


I can't even be sure that in the case I was describing it was definitely temperature that caused its transformation. I assume it was because these methuselah tads are more common in the north and at high altitude here but it could also have been something to do with water chemistry or a combination of both. 
I also found a pond that had formed in a collapsed undergound military bunker with uniformly extremely deep water that was shaded by heavy tree cover year round and there were many neotenic adults of one of our newt species present which are rarer still than huge methuselah tadpoles. I assume temperature was playing a major role there too as it would have been consistantly cooler than average but also very stable. There were literally hundreds present last year but sadly the spruce trees around it were harvested this spring and the loggers dumped so much resinous material into the pond that it's killed every last newt.


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