# Sylvaticus raised with alternative means



## rmelancon (Apr 5, 2004)

Raised by pumilio








Raised on other dendro eggs

iPhone doesn't take the greatest pix, trying out a new forum app.


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## ChrisK (Oct 28, 2008)

Nice, how old and was it surrogate or you feeding eggs from other frogs?

EDIT: Saw the captions


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## Eric Walker (Aug 22, 2009)

very nice.

more info please. 

which pumilio did you use eggs from( they were pums right?). were they fresh laid for each feeding.

im am sure everyone would love any details provided


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## rmelancon (Apr 5, 2004)

Eric Walker said:


> very nice.
> 
> more info please.
> 
> ...


I try to start them out on eggs from the parents and then switch to basically whatever is available with a preference for pumilio and other obligate egg feeder eggs. If I can't get eggs from the parents then I start with pumilio eggs. I never start with the larger eggs of say tincs or auratus, I only use those when the tads have a good bit of size on them.

I harvest the eggs as soon as I see them and prior to any real embyonic development. If the embryo has started forming they typically will ignore them. They can be fertilized, just not developed.

With the surrogates I swap out as early as I can and the rest is up to the frogs.

One thing to note is that I have had vastly different success rates with the alternate egg feeding depending on species and morph. The Lita's have so far been very successful.


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## ChrisK (Oct 28, 2008)

So far did the parents raise any on their own? What kind of frequency and amount do you feed - I notice the histrionicus will feed sometimes like 4-5 eggs per tad a couple of times a week


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## rmelancon (Apr 5, 2004)

ChrisK said:


> So far did the parents raise any on their own? What kind of frequency and amount do you feed - I notice the histrionicus will feed sometimes like 4-5 eggs per tad a couple of times a week


The parents have transported but no froglets. The amounts vary usually according to what I have available to harvest but probably averages a dozen or so pumilio sized eggs a week, less if I'm feeding larger eggs.


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## jfehr232 (Apr 13, 2009)

So is this would this be worth doing instead of letting them raise the tads? How long did it take for you to raise the one with dendro eggs compared to the one rasied by pumilio?


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## rmelancon (Apr 5, 2004)

jfehr232 said:


> So is this would this be worth doing instead of letting them raise the tads? How long did it take for you to raise the one with dendro eggs compared to the one rasied by pumilio?


I never recommend doing anything "instead of" letting them raise tads. Let the adults raise what they are going to raise. You will find that they will not raise nearly as many as they lay and fertilize. I typically will steal a clutch and they will lay/raise many clutches before I am ready to raise more. Some frogs, Lita is a prime example, have yet to raise any on their own, but this isn't because I'm stealing all the eggs, I'm not. I worked a lot with blue jeans pumilio in the past and my pair raised 2 froglets while I raised 12. If I had a pair that was cranking out 10-15 froglets a year I probably wouldn't bother, but that's usually not the case.

The froglets raised by pumilio typically morph a bit after ones I do on my own, but not by much. It usually takes between 8 and 10 weeks which is about the same as if they would raise on their own.


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## dendrothusiast (Sep 16, 2010)

rmelancon said:


> I worked a lot with blue jeans pumilio in the past and my pair raised 2 froglets while I raised 12.
> 
> The froglets raised by pumilio typically morph a bit after ones I do on my own, but not by much. It usually takes between 8 and 10 weeks which is about the same as if they would raise on their own.


AIN'T THAT THE TRUTH! I couldn't agree more on blue jeans as I was doing the same a few months back when I still had them. My solartes are great with what they do on their own, currently i'm raising three tads on my own. But my darklands were a different story - raise one or two and ignore the rest. 

I'm thinking of trying sylvaticus, but they're so rare I'm thinking of going with the aboreal ranitomeya fantasticus copperhead morph or ranitomeya benedicta for my four foot viv once it's done establishing itself. But DEFINATELY keeping my pumilios if I ever get sylvaticas for egg feeding purposes.


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## frogparty (Dec 27, 2007)

I think its rad that you are putting in the trial and error time to do something that benefits our hobby so much. Figuring things like this out is a big step towards getting these awesome fogs more established in our hobby.


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## Lance (Sep 8, 2008)

Well I think I can honestly say this post has been very informal regarding Sylvaticus. Im looking forward to future posts on the development on the froglets and future tads rmelancon.


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## rmelancon (Apr 5, 2004)

dendrothusiast said:


> ... But DEFINATELY keeping my pumilios if I ever get sylvaticas for egg feeding purposes.


You definitely need a good number of pumilio pairs to produce enough eggs to keep the tads going. I have quite a few pairs and occasionally still come up short on enough eggs to feed the tads that I have going.


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## Chris Miller (Apr 20, 2009)

Have you held back any of your 'alternative means' froglets for breeding? 

If so and they are breeding age, do they show an inclincation towards rearing their own young?

Just thinking about the heritability of parental care/what would interfere with parental care. Kind of like what happened with P. scalare Angelfish over many generations in captivity (though I'm not associating any of the negativity that some breeders now feel about artifically raising scalare with the artifical raising of histrionicus/sylvatica).


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## dendrothusiast (Sep 16, 2010)

rmelancon said:


> You definitely need a good number of pumilio pairs to produce enough eggs to keep the tads going. I have quite a few pairs and occasionally still come up short on enough eggs to feed the tads that I have going.


wow, well definately will keep that in mind if ever I go the route of sylvaticus. It seems more of a challenge with sylvaticus then hystos but I feel I would be better with sylvs since I only keep pumilios currently. Hopefully this post will be very useful with other sylvaticus keepers.


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## ChrisK (Oct 28, 2008)

dendrothusiast said:


> wow, well definately will keep that in mind if ever I go the route of sylvaticus. It seems more of a challenge with sylvaticus then hystos but I feel I would be better with sylvs since I only keep pumilios currently. Hopefully this post will be very useful with other sylvaticus keepers.


Well Sylvaticus used to be Histrionicus - also I don't really notice Sylvaticus being more "difficult" than Histrionicus, other peoples' experience might be different though.


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## dendrothusiast (Sep 16, 2010)

I remember when sylvas were histos but I kinda felt they were alittle different from eachother. Ive only ever seen litas and the owner said they like going all over their enclosure top to bottom while his hystos would mainly forage the middle to bottom. I've seen a couple of varieties of hystos and personally they have more color variations the sylvas but I like the sylvas puerto quitos and koi. How well do you think theyd fare in a 4foot wide 4 foot tall enclosure? Im curious as maybe if i run into someone with litas or quitos I may buy a few. The chances of that who knows but I can dream..


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## ChrisK (Oct 28, 2008)

dendrothusiast said:


> I remember when sylvas were histos but I kinda felt they were alittle different from eachother. Ive only ever seen litas and the owner said they like going all over their enclosure top to bottom while his hystos would mainly forage the middle to bottom. I've seen a couple of varieties of hystos and personally they have more color variations the sylvas but I like the sylvas puerto quitos and koi. How well do you think theyd fare in a 4foot wide 4 foot tall enclosure? Im curious as maybe if i run into someone with litas or quitos I may buy a few. The chances of that who knows but I can dream..


Honestly some of the Sylvaticus calls are more like Histrionicus and some Sylvaticus sound nothing like Histrionicus, I wouldn't really say there are more color morphs of Histrionicus either, there might actually be more Sylvaticus - both species use the entire tank in my experience, and there are larger and smaller morphs of both, honestly I almost really consider them both Histrionicus still, I can't understand the reasoning for the split since the reasons I read are not true (like calls). Bigger the better for them, and pairs work best so a pair or 1.2 trio would probably do good in something that size really well planted with large broms -

END HIJACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


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## dendrothusiast (Sep 16, 2010)

Interesting! I really never knew of all the color morphs of the sylvas. There's a youtube video ive seen of I think is a lita calling and now that you mention I think I saw a video you may have of a hysto calling that do sound very similar.

Honest opinion though chris, If one were to venture into sylvas such as myself , do you think litas would be a good species to star with?


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## ChrisK (Oct 28, 2008)

Yeah probably one of the best, they're bold and hardy (mine are at least)


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## dendrothusiast (Sep 16, 2010)

Thankyou very much for educating me on the sylvas and hystos chris. I know your one of the main hysto guys on dendroboard and we always look for your feedback and answers about the notorious "hysto and slyva" hard keeping questions. 

I'll definately try out the litas first before venturing to other morphs but I think I'm going to let my enclosure mature a couple more months before adding anything in there.

Thankyou again chris and good luck with your species - If it wouldnt be bothering I'll go to you on the sylva questions once I'm ready for them.


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## ChrisK (Oct 28, 2008)

Yeah PM me if anything, we're hijacking way too much here


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## rmelancon (Apr 5, 2004)

No worries on hijacking, it's all information and when it's good, it should be shared without worry.

Interesting notes on differences with histrionicus (or histrionica now I guess) and sylvaticus. I hear a slight difference in the calls, at least in my particular animals. I don't know if it's just that I am used to the calls of my individual animals to a point where I can tell them apart or if there really is a difference across the board. As far as one being easier than the other I think it is more about getting healthy animals to start with for one, and then I have found that some have been better producers than others. Even that could be different parameters in the way I have my enclosures set up though. What is productive in my setups may not be productive in your setups. I think it is safe to say though that in terms of long term production of healthy froglets/frogs both histrionica and sylvatica are among the most difficult.


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## rmelancon (Apr 5, 2004)

Chris Miller said:


> Have you held back any of your 'alternative means' froglets for breeding?
> 
> If so and they are breeding age, do they show an inclincation towards rearing their own young?
> 
> Just thinking about the heritability of parental care/what would interfere with parental care. Kind of like what happened with P. scalare Angelfish over many generations in captivity (though I'm not associating any of the negativity that some breeders now feel about artifically raising scalare with the artifical raising of histrionicus/sylvatica).


I have but not in so many numbers that the results would lean one way or the other. I have never understood how something that is not a learned behavior could be affected by outside influence. Even if it was learned, does the tadpole know that its parent isn't feeding it? If I feed it eggs from its parent, would it still know? Just doesn't make sense to me however I look at it.


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## Chris Miller (Apr 20, 2009)

rmelancon said:


> I have but not in so many numbers that the results would lean one way or the other. I have never understood how something that is not a learned behavior could be affected by outside influence. Even if it was learned, does the tadpole know that its parent isn't feeding it? If I feed it eggs from its parent, would it still know? Just doesn't make sense to me however I look at it.


I wasn't thinking that it was a learned behavior. I'm thinking it's more along the lines of the a genetic issue (lack of natural selection against poor parenting) in Angelfish. I know it's been many generations of fish that have been raised artificially allowing the fish that don't have strong parenting drives to successfully reproduce but I was wondering if you had seen the beginnings of this to occur in the frogs.

If you do see egg feeding behavior in the artificially raised froglets, it could point to some environmental trigger that the mother missed out on during a critical period and that the offspring were exposed to and subsequently raise tads properly.

I guess if the artificially raised frogs don't raise their tadpoles it could also point to a trigger that they aren't exposed to either.

An interesting read about genes and behavior is Nature via Nurture by Matt Ridley (read it in college).


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## ChrisK (Oct 28, 2008)

OK well here's a couple of clips to compare calls -

Just got lucky a couple of minutes ago and caught these 2, image quality not good since they don't like an audience, so I had to keep my distance and zoom thru the glass, but here are San Lorenzos courting, you can see by the female's size that she's good to go  they sound almost like blue jeans:






Here are some that I posted in the past in other threads

Lita calling, sounds totally different (in person at least, deeper, slower and more like squawking):






Here are Red heads - New Valleys (which are now sylvaticus) and Puerto Quito sylvaticus sound exactly like these, and Robb can probably tell you Bullseyes do also:


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## rmelancon (Apr 5, 2004)

Chris Miller said:


> I wasn't thinking that it was a learned behavior. I'm thinking it's more along the lines of the a genetic issue (lack of natural selection against poor parenting) in Angelfish. ...


Now natural selection (or lack thereof) makes sense in terms of influence, ie the parents would select to raise only the fittest etc. whereas I may select an "inferior" tad to raise.


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## dendrothusiast (Sep 16, 2010)

That's pretty interesting - sylvas calls are fast paced while hystos are slower.

sorry rmelancon for hijacking, I had no no idea what chris meant until after I read your statement. So in terms of inferior tads are you just pulling out the tads the parents ignore? That's the way i've always been doing it with my pums but not sure if it works the same way for hystos and sylvas.


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## rmelancon (Apr 5, 2004)

dendrothusiast said:


> That's pretty interesting - sylvas calls are fast paced while hystos are slower.
> 
> sorry rmelancon for hijacking, I had no no idea what chris meant until after I read your statement. So in terms of inferior tads are you just pulling out the tads the parents ignore? That's the way i've always been doing it with my pums but not sure if it works the same way for hystos and sylvas.


Not really, I will take an entire clutch soon after being fertilized and pick the tads that look the strongest when they hatch. If they have started transporting I leave the clutch alone.


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## ChrisK (Oct 28, 2008)

dendrothusiast said:


> That's pretty interesting - sylvas calls are fast paced while hystos are slower.


Some of them - and like I said some sound EXACTLY like histrionicus


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## dendrothusiast (Sep 16, 2010)

hmmm....This is awesome information! I hope the litas will do well in my set-up. There's alot I still want to grow in before I look into getting some.


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## stu&shaz (Nov 19, 2009)

Absolutely fascinating read thanks to everyone,wonderful obsevations as well thanks all,especially Rmelancon, one day in the distant future these are my dream frogs,threads like this are so thought provoking for a beginner THANKYOU...Stu


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