# Atelopus spumarius



## Grassypeak (Jun 14, 2005)

Corey,

Can you give us an update on your _Atelopus spumarius_ ? How are they doing? How big are they and what is their adult size? What is their husbandry like? Do you have any new pictures?


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## valledelcauca (Apr 13, 2004)

I`m not Corey, but a friend of mine has some spumarius and they live in a 2x0.6x0.6 meter vivarium with a stream and some Dendrophryniscus in it. Its a group of about 15 adults. At the moment, if I remember correctly, 2 pairs are in amplexus. Clutches none so far.
He had like 3 clutches in 2 years. Not much, but the main thing we found out is that you ought to seperate males from females for some month. Males can stay in a smaller viv with stream. Females need a quite large vivarium without streem to "walk". In the rainforest females "walk" several miles away from the breeding-stream and I think space to roam around is one of the basics which female atelopus need. I myself will concentrate my work on Atelopus breeding at the end of this year and try to breed them regularly.


Greetings
Andreas


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## Guest (Mar 27, 2006)

Are Atelopus at all available in the states? I saw some in a NOVA production last night, talking about venoms and toxins.


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## Grassypeak (Jun 14, 2005)

Vielen Dank Andreas,

If you have info on the successful breeding of this species please let us hear it. There are a few people that have them in the states, but from what I have heard there have been few if any successful breedings. I don’t think we have any Dendrophryniscus over here. They are really cool looking.

Tschuess,

Christoph


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## Grassypeak (Jun 14, 2005)

Ross,

Evidently they haven’t been imported in the last year or two. I’ve heard that this species is doing well in the wild and a few Americans have them. They are really cool looking but I’m not sure how big they get or what kinds of food they require. I’ve heard that the toadlets morph out tiny as can be, and that this is one of the problems with captive breeding. Also the wild toads are collected during breeding time (whenever that is) and this causes major problems with their captive survivability. Apparently during this time they have little or no body fat and the females are full of eggs. There is something called refeeding that takes place but I’m not sure what refeeding is. Perhaps Ed will chime in and educate me.


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## Rain_Frog (Apr 27, 2004)

I think Atelopus flavescens should be added. They are the classic, "pink and orange" toad. they are also still doing well.

The main problem with atelopus seems to be that they get beat up pretty badly shipped to us and the fact that the male ratio is REALLY high when you import them...like you said Chris, they are generally imported during breeding season when all you'll find is males congregating...

I hear that you won't see them much (well, at least for collectors who don't get paid enough to import them) during the rest of the year, so nobody has incentive to go looking deep in the jungle for them.

Once they get acclimated, I hear that they are tough frogs...but good luck trying to get a pair and breed them. I also heard that too Chris.... atelopus neonates are fairly challenging...but then again, most people never get a pair.

I think a mantella breeder may have better luck breeding them as they are stream dwellers during that time and mantella breeders are used to that for their own.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

One of the main reasons spumarius are doing well in the wild is due to being a lowland species where it is warmer and there is a little less risk of chytrid infection. This doesn't mean that they cannot have chytrid once they pass through the importers and all Atelopus should be treated prophylactically for chytrid. 

The imports coming into the country apprear to be lacking in fat reserves and the females have often ovulated with and on necropy show no fat pads. In addition most of the imports show severe nose rubs and need to be immediately treated to resolve this issue. The ratio is the couple of imports I am aware of have been between 4 and 10 to 1 male and female ratio which is to be expected to some extent if collected from the streams. 

Both the males and the females can be kept in moist terraria outside of the breeding period as both will migrate to the streams when reproductively ready. The females move further afield which allows them to avoid males when they are not receptive to breeding (as with other Atelopus) as the males will clasp encountered females whether they are at the streams or not and will remain on the female as long as possible in hopes that the female will go to the stream to breed before the male has to let go. This does stress the female and in captivity can result in mortality. 
In discussions with the staff at ABG and what I have seen here with A. zeteki one of the causes of losses in ltc females is egg retention with the resulting adhesions and infections. With A. spumarius the depositon sites appear to be the same as zeteki, under rocks away from the light in pools with some current flow but the females often do not deposit as readily as A. zeteki. This may be due to insufficient cycling of the females with respect to temperatures and dry season. 

Some thoughts 

Ed


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## Grassypeak (Jun 14, 2005)

Thanks Ed,

I’ve heard you mention refeeding when writing about Atelopus. Can you explain what this is?


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Hi Chris,

As I understand it refeeding syndrome occurs in animals that are severly emaciated to the point where ions are pulled out of the cells to maintain the systemic requirements. (I can dig up the exact wording if you want it). If the animal is then fed a large meal it can enter into shock and die as digestion occurs. This is due to the nutrients hitting the blood stream and the circulating ions being pulled out of the blood volume to transport the nutrients into the cells dropping the amount of ions needed to maintain the systemic needs belwo the viable threshold. 
This is why potentially one of the worst things to do with a severely malnourished animal is to give it a large meal. To avoid problems with refeeding syndrome, you need to offer about 10% of the daily caloric needs each day for a week or more (some references recommend two weeks) after which the amount of food is increased daily until the animal has been returned to a normal diet. 
This period allows for the animal to rebuild the reserves needed to assimilate larger meals.. 

Ed


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## Rain_Frog (Apr 27, 2004)

Ed, could this be one reason why many lose WC animals once they start eating? I hear, and have experienced "my WC frog when I got it was eating and acting normal, but a few days later it was dead."

I lost a female mantella betsileo about five days after I acquired it, but was eating and acting normally and was found dead the next morning.


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## Grassypeak (Jun 14, 2005)

Ed,

Thank you so much for your time. You are a real credit to this board.


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## Grassypeak (Jun 14, 2005)

Oh yea, does anyone have adult size information on these guys. Are they huge like A. zeteki, or are they smaller. The ones in Corey’s album look quite small.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Thanks for the compliment Chris. 

The wild caught spumarius are smaller than the zeteki you see in the Zoos. A large female spumarius has a body a little larger than a quarter. (I am making a distinction as wc zeteki are a lot smaller than the animals you see in the Zoos and it is possible that any cb spumarius could be a lot bigger than the wc animals). 

Hi Doug, 

without a necropsy it is hard to say. I would say that there is a chance that refeeding contributed to or caused the frog to die. 

Ed


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## Grassypeak (Jun 14, 2005)

Thanks again Ed, This is all great stuff.


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## phyllomedusa (May 17, 2004)

Hi ed,
i think the female spumarius are bigger than a quarter. Out of the 25 i got in a few years ago i got 21 males and 4 females. The females were more the size of tincs and the males were about the size of a quarter. sadly i lost 10 within a week but the rest did fine . only 2 females survived and all my spumarius are now out in the hobby(i think corey got a good portion of em).

Sean


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Hi Sean,

I got a group last year (8 males and 4 females) and the females had/have a snout-vent size (excluding the legs) a little larger than a quarter. The males body would fit comfortably on a quarter.. 
I would not be surprised to find out that there is significant differences in the size of the animals between populations (not subspecies but simply different locations). 
The group came in with a couple of the females already in amplexus by the males and I did a rough necropsy on a couple of the early deaths. There were no fat pads and the females had yolked up.... 


A little information update on the refeeding syndrome I posted above. I got my copy of Mader's new book and the recommendation for reptiles that may be at risk of refeeding syndrome is to not exceed 50% of the SMR for the first several days to allow for the animal to recover. 

Ed


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## valledelcauca (Apr 13, 2004)

Size-wise I`d say the yellow spumarius from the Guyana-shield are about 2,5cm in total and the blue ones from peru a little bit smaller ( about 2,1 cm). I`ve seen quite a few species and in general you can say that male Atelopus are all arround one inch in size (A.seminiferus for example is bigger, its close to 2 inches but very thin with long legs). The females are all quite big. I saw some very big female flavescens last summer in French Guyana, they were HUGE.
Here`s a pic of my trip to French Guyana. I found that couple of A.flavescens near the stream and it was dry season (August---> very very warm).



















Greetings
Andreas


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## Frogtofall (Feb 16, 2006)

This is a great thread. Keep it going. I'm inhaling this stuff.


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

Sorry people, this thread got started when I wasn't paying attention lol, still trying to recover from vacation. Anyways, I get most of my info from Ed anyways, so he's pretty much covered it 

Grassypeak - food wise my animals have the culinary tastes similar to many of the PDFs - especially the more terrestrial species. I fed a staple of pinheads, supplimenting with hydei, termites, aphids, lesser waxies, and RFB larvae. There are a few other foods in the market now I'd like to try with them in the future. They are very slow and deliberate compared to our spunky PDFs, and really went for any food I put in a shallow bowl for them lol.

Note about morph out size - I got the morph out size from Ron G of ABG when they successfully bred and raised the tads, the toadlets were the definition of small (following the trends I've seen in other toads... remember PDFs have very high froglet to adult size ratios!). I like to reference THIS PICTURE from Ron G's Gallery on FrogNet. Now what does a toadlet thats a touch over 6 mm eat? I would think they'd choke on 2 mm springtails...

Yes Sean, in fact, I believe the males pictured in my gallery (and avatar) were from you, they were my original group. They were significantly smaller that I thought they would be, since the only _Atelopus_ I had seen before then were _Atelopus varius_ ssp. from NAIB, which were sized like the _Atelopus zeteki_ we see in the zoos these days. Calling males for me were under an inch SVL, I've never actually seen a female in person.

Another thing about the male : female ratio imported (since Ed kinda glazed over it) the "theory" I've talked about with some people who know _Atelopus_ is that they are obviously collected during the breeding season (males calling, females ovulating and lack of fat pads used for egg development) and while its the worst time to collect them, for the females at least, its the easiest time to find them, just walk down the stream. The males show up, find a calling spot, and will stay there waiting for females, or be in the nearby woods trying to catch them before they get to the stream, while females come and go during that period - it is not neccessarily an accurate portrayal of the sex ratio of the population, rather just what toads are at the stream at the time of collection.

Careful feeding (refeeding like Ed mentioned before) and bacterial treatments worked on the new imports more than anything else, but there were still significant losses. Treating for worms and not getting the frogs ASAP (like thru resellers that have had them for a while) stressed the animals more and didn't help them much. I'm not saying don't worm them - just that from my animals treating them for bacteria should be a priority (as it caused the "nose rub" which if not caught in time killed the animals), not worming them which was the only treatment many of the animals I got had (in fact the animals that were never treated did better overall, and were wormed at a later date when they were healthy).


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## Rain_Frog (Apr 27, 2004)

Corey, from talking to Devin Edmonds, many Mantellas morph out that tiny and eat mostly springtails. I'm not sure what the feeding behavior of atelopus is like, but remember adult mantellas (which are smaller than terribilis) will go after crickets that most phyllobates would take.

What about mites? They infest so many vivarium cultures and mass produce, perhaps setup a "leaf litter" tank for them?

How did you all aquire your atelopus? Who was the dealer?


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

I believe mantellas morph out a bit bigger than the atelopus, and the problem might be differences in food preference. Epipedobates tricolor froglets come out of the water (if raised correctly) eating hydei, but larger tinc froglets won't eat them until they are larger... and even then I don't think a froglet would take a food item 1/3 its length like that... even the hydei/tricolor ratio was more like 1/4.

If the hoogmoedi ever breed and I get a chance at some, I'd like to set the toadlets up in a compost tank like Ben Eiben came up with. I believe this would be the best way to supply them with the small food items they need, such as mites and smaller compost buggies that we really don't culture. I've got compost mites and micro springtails that would do well, but don't culture nearly as well as the larger white springtails. Newborn aphids might also work, but its really hard to get those on demand...

I got my atelopus from a variety of sources, depending on the importation, and just who had them at the time, and what price. The closer to the original importer and original importation date the better, but no matter what, these guys were tough to deal with for the first couple months and are best left for those experienced with WCs (of which I wasn't when I originally got them and I paid dearly for it).


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## Grassypeak (Jun 14, 2005)

Thanks for the input Corey, Any chance of some new pictures of your group? 

I wonder if morphing at such a micro size is common among the Bufonidae. We are overrun with Fowlers toad, Bufo fowleri, here, and, if memory serves correct, their toadlets are the same size if not smaller! As far as raising the morphlings, I was thinking along the same lines as you. Perhaps if you set up a viv with a layer of worm castings and leaf letter from a nearby wooded area, then heated it up to 90 degrees for a week, you could create a chytrid free woodland tank and still preserve much of the microfauna.


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

The _A. s. hoogmoedi _ are not an active project for me as I've placed all my males with people who have/had females and were hoping to breed them, and there is no point in my collecting them back at this point since I'm still moving around a lot and don't have a female. I'm hoping for a new importation of them to start my project up again.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

You could always sift the springtails to provide the correct food size. 
In rearing froglets of this size, I would suggest placing them into a active but not blooming springtail culuture (the compost idea). If it has a mite problem all the better. The froglets will then choose the appropriate sized food items. 

Ed


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## edwardsatc (Feb 17, 2004)

I’ve have two groups, from the 2002 and 2004 importations. I don’t think it can be emphasized enough that these guys arrive in very poor shape. In both of my cases, it took months of constant care to bring these animals back to a healthy condition and there were still many losses.Unfortunately, they are usually very cheap (I paid $15 a piece in 2004) and many people without the knowledge or skills buy them only to watch them slowly waste away. 

They usually arrive with little to no fat reserves, sores, and severe nose rubs. I received a few in 2004 that literally had no snout left at all. You could see right into their mouth. 

After several years of trying to get these guys to breed, I’ve pretty much given up. I’ve tried seasonal changes, keeping males and females separate for long periods, very large enclosures with running water, etc. I’ve seen one clutch of eggs and that was after I quit trying to induce breeding.

The males will gladly engage in amplexus, the problem is that the females never seem to be ready to breed. Eventually, I wind up separating them for fear that the stress of long term amplexus will result in the loss of the female.

Funny thing is that if I ever do get a successful clutch, I’m not sure that I could ever successfully raise the young. Tadpole rearing and care of the young toadlets both present some big challenges.

For now, I’m happy to just watch them and observe their behaviors. These guys are super bold. In fact, they seem to be afraid of nothing and are always out and about for my viewing pleasure.


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## Grassypeak (Jun 14, 2005)

So where exactly, do these guys lay their eggs? If not in the water, is there any parental care. Is Atelopus spumarius toxic? If so, does it retain its toxicity in captivity, and across generations?


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Donn,
If you ever want to do a breeding loan or hear of another shipment coming in drop me a line. 

I've been talking to a number of people about these guys and thier habitat and what is like when they breed and have some thoughts on it. I have some suspicions that we (again a general statement) are not taking them down cool enough at night with a significant enough day/night drop as well as not drying them enough during the non-breeding season. 

Grassypeaks, 
They use small pools of slower water in the streams (zeteki for example can use the pools at the base of water falls) and then they deposit thier eggs in crevices/under rocks away from the light. The eggs are white lacking melanin to protect them from light. 
As with other bufonids, the toxins are not derived from prey sources but are secreted within the toad. It is toxic as to how hot the toad is, I haven't seen any data (doesn't mean it isn't out there) but tetrodotoxin class toxins have been found in a number of Atelopus species (see http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/101/13/4346 for an example). 

Ed


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## Rain_Frog (Apr 27, 2004)

again, the methods for breeding Mantellas would probably work very well. Mantellas additionally breed near small streams and deposit their eggs a little away from water so the rains will wash the tadpoles into the stream.

Ed, got any suggestions how to setup a "chytrid free" compost tank in order to feed the tiny neonates? In this situation, thoroughly drying the leaf litter or raising to 120 degrees for 4 hours may destroy the food items.

I say mites might be another possibility.

Apparently there isn't much smaller we can offer them unless the larger froglets will take springtails, but Corey pointed out that probably isn't going to happen.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

I guess I wasn't clear, the lay eggs in the pools under the water under rocks and in crevices where the light doesn't reach. 

To get soil invertebrates that would probably be chytrid free use a Berlese Funnel. 

Ed


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

They are only similar on the surface. The only similarities between the _Mantella_ and _Atelopus_ stream breeding is the tapoles in the stream, and that both seem to like to hide their eggs away from light but I think _Atelopus_ are much stricter about this for the reasons Ed stated. The egg part of their life, as Ed pointed out, it very different.

_Atelopus_ - underwater crevices in pools (aka not heavily flowing water) next to active stream. They are laid in the water, stay in the water, hatch in the water.

vs.

_Mantella_ - Their eggs, while laid in cavities, are not laid in water, and are suppose to be slightly above the water line. As they are laid in the wet season the rains will raise the water level of the stream as it swells with rain during the storms (the stream would raise and fail a couple inches during each swell). While these swells will keep the eggs moist I imagine, they aren't underwater the whole time. The swells are also responsible for flushing the hatched tadpoles into the stream. Liad out of water, only flushed with water, tads hatch and are then flushed into the stream.

Grassypeak,
Neither groups show anywhere near the parental care of PDFs, tho Mantellas show it (possibly) more than the Atelopus (which, like typical toads, lay them and leave them). The "possible" mantella parental care is that adults, assumed parents, can sometimes be seen hanging around the egg clutches after they are laid. They are usually IDed as males. This could be parental care (adult keeping eggs moist, tho I doubt it as good site selection and stream swells would in theory take care of this) but IMO its just the male gaurding the eggs from other males possibly coming in an fertilizing (which isn't parental care as much as protecting his investment). There is the possibility he could be protecting from predators as well, which would be some parental care, but not nearly on the level of PDFs, which show some of the most advanced parental care in amphibians, and is especially interesting as its not nearly so common in anurans as caudates. Parental care in anurans as the exception, not the rule.


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## Dane (Aug 19, 2004)

> To get soil invertebrates that would probably be chytrid free use a Berlese Funnel.


Ed, I'm assuming that you mean to use a funnel without alcohol/preservative in the capture jar, or were you saying that they only way to get chytrid free soil arthopods is to kill them and any microorganisms they might be carrying?


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Use a moist paper towel on the bottom as opposed to the preservative. I have used these to collect food for hatchling plethodontids. 

Ed


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## EDs Fly Meat (Apr 29, 2004)

Not to hijack the topic, but A. spumaris is an odd name. Spum is latin for foam, or foaming. Is this a refence to the "bubble" like pattern it has? I have always wondered that.
Dave


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## Rain_Frog (Apr 27, 2004)

Dane, if you remember from the Wild Food post in the food section, I mentioned the bug funnel (and I just realized now Ed mentioned the proper name).

Devin Edmonds recommended that you put a small heat lamp above the funnel so the creatures burrow away from the heat, through the screening, and down into the container.

Nobody probably knows the answer to this, has there ever been a stomach content analysis of the neonate atelopus?


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

I would have to review all of the papers describing the natural habitat of the Atelopus to give you a good answer. There have been a number of these papers (a lot of which I haven't been able to track down)... 

Ed


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## Rain_Frog (Apr 27, 2004)

I will also see if I can get peter (OneTwentySix) to respond. I remember chatting with him one night, that they examined some neonate stomach contents from some native Bufo. I believe he said they found mostly mites, but I'll have to ask.


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## OneTwentySix (Nov 11, 2004)

Hey guys. Doug pointed me to this post, and as he said, I am working on a neonate Bufo americanus gut content identification project. These toadlets are pretty small, so Atelopus neonates should be able to eat some of the same things.

While I'm only partway into the study, having done some twelve stomachs so far (it can take up to three or four hours to do a single one, depending on how much it's eaten and how long it takes to sort the guts from the bugs), I've got some of the results with me right now, though I don't know if anything available would be easily culturable.

Acari (mites): 109
Thysanoptera (thrips): 2
Psocoptera: 34
Hymenoptera (ants): 9
Hymenoptera (wasps) 1
Spiders: 4
Nematode: 1
Coleoptera (beetles): 1


Mites are overwhelmingly the biggest food item in these neonate toads, and they're pretty easy to culture, though there are so many different species of mites out there. These can also usually be ordered from places that sell beneficial insects for crops.

I wish I had more to add to the discussion here. If anyone's interested in the analysis, it'll probably be done a year or so from now, and I'd be glad to post the results then.

How many people have even managed to get neonate Atelopus anyhow, though?


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Zeteki are pretty easy to breed. the tadpoles want to graze rocks for a food source so this part causes some loss in the rearing process. Depending on the clutch between 20-80% may make the switch and do well but this still causes a large number of metamorphs as the clutch sizes are pretty big (usually at least several hundred eggs). 
A number of Zoos have bred them both purposely and inadvertantly. They rear them in springtail colonies allowing them to feed on the small springtails. 

The varius are also supposed to be similar in difficulty to the zeteki. 

Ed


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## Rain_Frog (Apr 27, 2004)

Peter: Thanks. Know of a company with a good reputation I can order these mites? This would be useful for mantella neonates for variety. 

Ed: Are you saying varius still exist, just not in the wild anymore? (therefore in zoos). Justin I believe said the last varius he saw in the wild were in 2003 (not saying they could still exist somewhere in the wild).


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

There is a small population of varius in the USA Zoos. They were collected at the same time as zeteki (and are also the property of the Panamanian gov) but are not the same breeding priority so the population is a lot smaller. 

Ed


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## Rain_Frog (Apr 27, 2004)

Ed, could you please name (specifically) a USA zoo with the varius?

But back to Atelopus spumarius, what sort of calls do they make? Are the males/females highly aggressive?


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

The male spumarius do territorial call and have individual perches for calling but I haven't seen the sort of agression reported in Dendrobatid frogs. 

The varius are not on exhibit at any of the holding institutions as far as I know at this time but they are currently being moved around. One of the original holding istitutions is the Baltimore Zoo and they are moving them around to other holding institutions at this time. 
Baltimore closed its reptile house, so these frogs are not available for the public to view. 


Ed


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## *GREASER* (Apr 11, 2004)

KeroKero said:


> Note about morph out size - I got the morph out size from Ron G of ABG when they successfully bred and raised the tads, the toadlets were the definition of small (following the trends I've seen in other toads... remember PDFs have very high froglet to adult size ratios!). I like to reference THIS PICTURE from Ron G's Gallery on FrogNet. Now what does a toadlet thats a touch over 6 mm eat? I would think they'd choke on 2 mm springtails.



I got some pictures of an Atelopus sp.(they are thought to be spumairs but nothing is finalized yet) toadlet from a couple weeks ago and that sucker is small. We found many males and could hear them calling all over.


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## Rain_Frog (Apr 27, 2004)

One easy way to get a smorgasbord of mites is to just take an old, dried out fruit fly culture and dump the contents in the tank.

Ed, you mentioned one time that you believe that the amazonian soil is high in calcium. Apparently, the only way to really get calcium to the neonate atelopus would be to enrich the soil (allow the insects to be gut loaded).

Would simple ground cuttlefish bone (the kind for parrots/parakeets) be fine, or are you suggesting something like calcium glucomate (which I know nothing about) should be used as an additive?

I have used ground cuttlefish bone in the past (leftovers from the birds here).


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

snip "Ed, you mentioned one time that you believe that the amazonian soil is high in calcium. Apparently, the only way to really get calcium to the neonate atelopus would be to enrich the soil (allow the insects to be gut loaded). " endsnip


Hi Doug,
Unfortunately with the exception of earthworms, gutloading with calcium is difficult and inexact for the most part. With arthropods in general, if you can get sufficient calcium into the insects' gut to balance out the phosphorus content then you typically will kill most of the arthropods in about 48 hours time (faster if you short them of water). What happens in the wild is that the frog typically also gets other items along with the targeted food item and this can include soil particles which would supply the needed calcium. 

snip "Would simple ground cuttlefish bone (the kind for parrots/parakeets) be fine, or are you suggesting something like calcium glucomate (which I know nothing about) should be used as an additive? " endsnip

This will help but see the limitations from above and keep in mind that without a source of D3 the toadlets won't be able to metabolize sufficient levels of calcium. 


Ed


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## Rain_Frog (Apr 27, 2004)

anybody know if flavescens or spumarius are available in Europe?

I know flavescens is somewhere in Euro collections as CB.


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## valledelcauca (Apr 13, 2004)

Sadly no species mentioned is available in Europe. There are few people keeping them, I`d say two keepers have spumarius in Germany and maybe one has flavescens. The Zoo of Chemnitz listed Atelopus Flavescens on their amphibian-list, but as far as I know they don`t have them anymore.
I`m trying to set up a "German Atelopus breeding programm" and am redesigning my whole facility right now. But the hardest part is to find the Toads. So I`m not that optimistic yet.


Greetings
Andreas


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## Rain_Frog (Apr 27, 2004)

I believe Justin Yeager said that spurmarius and flavescens are still fairly common, but like most have mentioned, it is difficult to find them outside the breeding season. I bet if frogs were not collected at that time, there'd be much less mortality. 

RD Bartlett mentions Atelopus in his book "Frogs, toads, and Treefrogs" about A. flavescens, but I cannot remember how old the title was (it included E. tricolor which already dropped out of the hobby, but are making a return).


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

I don't think that the time of collection has as much to do with it as how the toads are handled post collection. A zeteki and A varius were collected during the breeding season for Project Golden Frog and there was no mortality associated with the collections. 
When animals are destined for the pet trade, the collector gathers them up until and holds them (crowded dirty conditions are typical and doesn't feed them) until the middleman comes through and buys them. They are often then held by the middle man until he has aquired enough animals to be sent or sold to the exporter. The exporter then holds the animals until there are sufficient animals to warrent a shipment.....


Ed


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## Rain_Frog (Apr 27, 2004)

If anybody minds sharing, who is the vendor(s) that you all bought your spumarius from? I *may contact them about the next shipment...but most likely I will not purchase any.


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