# Repashy Calcium Formate?



## npaull (May 8, 2005)

Just saw this on Josh's Frogs...

Repashy Formic-Cal Plus (3 oz Jar) - Calcium Plus Supplements | Josh's Frogs

It's a calcium formate product designed for ant-eating herps. I've LONG wanted to keep horned lizards but deferred because of their failure to thrive long-term, always presumed to be due to lack of ants in their diet. I'm very intrigued by this...

Another angle - many darts eat LOTS of small ants in the wild. Is there any knowledge about the role of formic acid in their diet?

Just wanted to generate some discussion and thoughts on this as this is the first time I've seen it and I think it's pretty cool...


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## Judy S (Aug 29, 2010)

hope someone with some scientific expertise will make comment...


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## frogparty (Dec 27, 2007)

I know there's a few people adding it to their rotation- quantifying its effectiveness will be difficult I think.
Being a very small, non cyclic molecule- I doubt it's involved in any kind of alkaloid synthesis. There could be other benefits though. Dendrobates and Oophaga have clearly evolved a way to deal with it in their digestion, so it's possible thst they use it metabolically


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

The argument for failure to thrive based on the lack of formic acid should be considered suspect. 

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1748-1090.1984.tb03022.x/abstract

Track down a copy of the above paper and then look for the references. There are several references for captive care of several species. 

Some comments 

Ed


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## frogparty (Dec 27, 2007)

Any reference material for the benefits of formic acid and dart frogs?


The horned lizard paper is not surprising. Ant specialists and all...


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

frogparty said:


> I know there's a few people adding it to their rotation- quantifying its effectiveness will be difficult I think.
> Being a very small, non cyclic molecule- I doubt it's involved in any kind of alkaloid synthesis. There could be other benefits though. Dendrobates and Oophaga have clearly evolved a way to deal with it in their digestion, so it's possible thst they use it metabolically


There isn't any indication that it has a value metabolically.... It is also not used in any manner as a precursor for any toxins found in the frogs. 
The argument that is required for digestion isn't really there as there have been several species of horned lizard housed for significant periods of time without offering any of the formicine ants as a food source. 

On a hunch, I would suspect vitamin deficiencies given that they produce copious amounts of mucous as part of their feeding strategy (http://hydrodictyon.eeb.uconn.edu/people/schwenk/SherbrookeSchwenkPhryno08.pdf) and any deficiency that impairs this method could result in issues with digestion. 

Some comments 

Ed


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

frogparty said:


> Any reference material for the benefits of formic acid and dart frogs?
> 
> 
> The horned lizard paper is not surprising. Ant specialists and all...


There is a difference between being an ant specialist and requiring ants as a dietary staple. This is an indication of correlation versus causation... and in a number of species known to not be true. 

As for formic acid and dendrobatids, I'm not aware of any studies yet but in limited amounts formic acid isn't uncommon in the diets of a number of animals. For example, it is commonly used as a preservative in livestock foods...... 

Some comments 

Ed


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## frogparty (Dec 27, 2007)

I'm aware Ed, im just saying the papers findings aren't surprising.


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## npaull (May 8, 2005)

> On a hunch, I would suspect vitamin deficiencies given that they produce copious amounts of mucous as part of their feeding strategy (http://hydrodictyon.eeb.uconn.edu/pe...nkPhryno08.pdf) and any deficiency that impairs this method could result in issues with digestion.


Ed, you're saying that you suspect vitamin deficiencies may be the reason so many report failures with captive husbandry of Phrynosoma? 

I tried to get that article but my initial efforts were thwarted by a $35 price tag... will have to track down other avenues to find it...

I'd love to hear Repashy's thoughts on the product. Presumably some research went into its manufacture.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

I think there are several potential things going on a number of them dietary and the first of them is deficiencies of some vitamins. For example, we know that horned lizards utilize a large amount of mucous in their prey capture and swallowing. Insufficient vitamin A is going to result in changes to these mucous producing glands (squamous metaplasia like that which occurs in short tongue syndrome). So deficiencies are going to impact how they capture and manage food items. I've seen horned lizards that took multiple attempts to capture food items and they often stopped eating within a week or two (from my days in the pet trade) 

In addition, we also have a good understanding that only supplying D3 through diet may not be sufficiently meet metabolic demand as in the species of reptiles surveyed so far maintain circulating levels of D3 and it's metabolites in excess of what can be achieved through diet. 

On a third note, Phrynosoma are known to harbor nematodes that help breakdown chitinous prey items and if these get out of balance, there can be negative issues from too little to too large an infestation. 

The fourth issue is that you don't know how they were maintained prior to your getting them. If they were fed and then kept at sub-optimal temperatures which inhibits digestion you can get issues from protozoal and bacterial overgrowths and decompositon of the prey items. This is known to be an issue in a number of reptile taxa. 

I would also suspect that often people keep them in too small of an enclosure and just dump a bunch of insects in with the toads. This can be highly stressful as in the wild, a large number of rapidly moving invertebrates is generally a signal to move on as the ants are probably beginning to attack... 

In the cases where there was success in keeping horned lizards, the lizards were generally kept in pairs in as large an enclosure as possible to allow them to behave as normal as possible. 

Some species like the common ones for sale (P. platyrhinos) can have a surprisingly long activity period (potentially ranging from dawn to one or two hours after dusk) and some provisions need to be made for this behavior. 

I've kept both Desert (P. platyrhinos) and Round-tailed horned lizards (Phrynosoma modestum) for two or more years in the past but this is anecdotal so..... The desert horned lizards were one's I collected on a trip out west to a wedding so I knew their background and I picked up the round-tailed through the pet trade. 

If you really want to make a try at it, look for round-tails as that species often doesn't have large numbers of ants in it's diet, it's much smaller and thus easier to house and it's much more of an generalist insectivore. 

If you shoot me your e-mail I'll see what I have in my library that can help. 

Some comments 

Ed


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