# R. fantastica



## Chris Miller (Apr 20, 2009)

I have a pair of truly bold standard/copperhead fantastica and I figured I should start taking advantage of that and take some pictures. The frogs are always together so when I started taking pics I didn't notice that anything was up. It turns out I caught them laying eggs in the front of their viv, so I've decided to post this up like a journal (wanted to do it day by day but the real world got in the way).

The female is actually laying eggs in these pictures, I backed off once I knew what was going on. They actually had a clutch that was ~10 days old at this time on a peperomia leaf in the back of the viv.

December 2nd:



























Here are the eggs about 1 hour later:










With the flash on:


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## Chris Miller (Apr 20, 2009)

December 5th:

These eggs are now 3 days old.










With the leaf pulled down a little so you get a different angle:










Now in the midst of all this shuffling around in the cage, (which really breaks my second of the two frogs rules I have) the male caught my attention at the top of the cage:









Apparently they had hidden another clutch of eggs in addition to the ones at the back of the cage. I thought the frogs had taken a week or so off, apparently not. Here are a couple more of him transporting later on in the day:


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## Chris Miller (Apr 20, 2009)

December 6th:

Here are the eggs at 4 days:


















At this point the male still hadn't deposited the tads, or had a new set of tads on his back, so I decided to stop messing around in the viv until they had been deposited.


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## Julio (Oct 8, 2007)

Great Shot Chris, i wish mine weren't flighty when i open the viv!!


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## HunterB (Apr 28, 2009)

Beautiful Pictures
I love carrying pictures


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## Chris Miller (Apr 20, 2009)

December 9th:

The male deposited/lost the tads between the 6th and the 7th but I didn't have a chance to get pictures until this morning. I guess I'll find out of they are taking care of tads if the stop laying new clutches like they did last time.

Here are the eggs at 7 days:









One with the leaf pulled down too:









I will be in LA from Thursday to Sunday afternoon, so unfortunately I won't get new pictures. Will try to convince the GF to take some pictures. Maybe letting her name my frogs will be enough incentive.


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## melas (Oct 24, 2007)

Excellent! Thanks for detailing this - I'm picking up some of these guys soon - definitely hope to share this same level of success!


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## Allyn Loring (Sep 30, 2008)

Wow great pics. camera used ?


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## frogandtoad (Apr 24, 2009)

Thanks for the pics! Standard fants are so incredibly beautiful. Another species on my wish list...


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## sports_doc (Nov 15, 2004)

Nicely done Chris. The photos are great.

You planning on letting them tank feed?

How about the obligatory full tank shot?


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## Chris Miller (Apr 20, 2009)

First off, thanks and you're welcome everyone. Hope you enjoy them. The fantastica group is my personal favorite.



Julio said:


> Great Shot Chris, i wish mine weren't flighty when i open the viv!!


If the lights are on, I can count on seeing them both out. They're just as bold as my imitators. I know I'm lucky.



melas said:


> Excellent! Thanks for detailing this - I'm picking up some of these guys soon - definitely hope to share this same level of success!


I hope you do too. Mine lay exclusively on horizontal plant leaves that are covered by another leaf or object. From personal experience, I have had the best breeding luck with fants when I can get the female up to maximum size, the best way to do this is keep them from breeding until they are about a year old. This female is almost an inch and I have one that is over 27 cm. Again from my experience the bigger/stronger the female the more she will pursue the male. This guy rarely calls anymore, she is always up in his business.



Allyn Loring said:


> Wow great pics. camera used ?


Haha. Old school. Canon D60 with a Canon 100mm macro lens (not the USM one).


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## Chris Miller (Apr 20, 2009)

sports_doc said:


> Nicely done Chris. The photos are great.
> 
> You planning on letting them tank feed?
> 
> How about the obligatory full tank shot?


Thanks. You know I was thinking about that all afternoon at work watching the snow. They have raised up 5 tads (all from one clutch) before so there are enough deposition sites. I'm going to leave whatever the male transported in the tank. I did pull that clutch of 4 that was laid between the ones transported in these pictures and the ones just laid. So I think I may leave these and see what happens. Could be just in time for a weekend so I would be able to watch the whole thing. I personally prefer tank raising the frogs (most of my tanks have tads in them now). What do you think?

I will get right on that FTS as well.


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## Phyllobates (Dec 12, 2008)

Very cool photo series Chris. Thanks so much for sharing. Looking forward to that tank shot as well! 

What line are they?

Chris


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## markbudde (Jan 4, 2008)

I just found this post. Very cool pics!


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## Chris Miller (Apr 20, 2009)

Phyllobater said:


> Very cool photo series Chris. Thanks so much for sharing. Looking forward to that tank shot as well!
> 
> What line are they?





markbudde said:


> I just found this post. Very cool pics!


Thanks Chris and Mark!

They are the old line with one from Todd's line and another from my old line.

Yes... the FTS. I'll get right on that for real this time as well as one of the tadpoles that they transported that I can get at.


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## Chris Miller (Apr 20, 2009)

Another of the male with tads:











The FTS in all its...um...glory:


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## Julio (Oct 8, 2007)

you just keep pumping them out Chris, great job!!
are you pulling the tads or letting them raise their own?


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## Chris Miller (Apr 20, 2009)

I'm letting them raise their own now. They're visiting 5 canisters and a bromeliad now. Unreal.


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## Leidig (Apr 10, 2009)

Great shots. I love when members share pictures of their frogs carrying tadpoles. Thanks for starting this thread.


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## Newt1 (Feb 25, 2007)

Great shots. 
Thanks for starting this thread.
I can't wait until the next post
I love to see pictures of frogs carrying tadpoles.


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## flyingkip (Jan 9, 2005)

Are they also feeding them feeder-eggs? I as talking to another frogger the other day, and he was telling me they are non-obligate eggfeeders.. But other then lamasi, vanzolinii and some imitator morphs (especially intermedius) I have yet to hear of feeder eggs getting deposited!

Congratz on the breeding btw!


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## Chris Miller (Apr 20, 2009)

flyingkip said:


> Are they also feeding them feeder-eggs? I as talking to another frogger the other day, and he was telling me they are non-obligate eggfeeders.. But other then lamasi, vanzolinii and some imitator morphs (especially intermedius) I have yet to hear of feeder eggs getting deposited!
> 
> Congratz on the breeding btw!


Thanks and thanks to everyone else for the positive notes!

You know, I was just going to post about this. I've caught this female in the film canisters depositing eggs every couple days for the past few weeks. The funny thing is, she is all by herself. The male is off doing his own thing and she seems to be finding the tads all on her own. Now, the tank is small 12" x 12" x 18" so it's not like she has that much to remember, but she is visiting 6 tadpoles in the same order without calling assistance from the male. The funny thing is one of the female _R. uakarri_ is doing the same thing a couple tanks down (with only 3 tads though).

Every other time I've seen non-obligate egg feeders raise their young (imitator, lamasi and reticulata) the male always calls and gets the female to come over and lay feeder eggs. Almost all my frogs other than my nominat imitator are raising tads currently and all the males call to get the females to lay eggs.

I was wondering if anyone else noticed this with _R. fantastica_ group frogs.


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## flyingkip (Jan 9, 2005)

Thanks for the reply, cool to hear you've got uakarii and reticulatus also depositing feeder-eggs. Didn't know they actually did that! Hope to see my non pumilio frogs doing it!


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## Adamrl018 (Jun 18, 2010)

awesome thread


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## SmackoftheGods (Jan 28, 2009)

Time for an update, Chris.



Aurotaenia said:


> This female is almost an inch and I have one that is over 27 cm.


Holy crap that's a big fantasticus! I don't think I've been able to get a leuc over 6 cm... I wonder how you did that with a thumb....


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## Chris Miller (Apr 20, 2009)

SmackoftheGods said:


> Time for an update, Chris.
> 
> 
> 
> Holy crap that's a big fantasticus! I don't think I've been able to get a leuc over 6 cm... I wonder how you did that with a thumb....


Alright smarty pants, send the retics back. Haha. I meant millimeters.

Not much to update, I get 5-6 eggs every 14-16 days from these guys. I stopped them in the summer for a month or so. They started up again last week.


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## randa4 (Jul 29, 2010)

Chris,

Really good photography, and a great story! Are you growing the tads now?
_________________
Mike in Helotes


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## Chris Miller (Apr 20, 2009)

Thanks! Yeah those tads/froglets are long gone, but they produce reliably and I have tads all the way through froglets.


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