# What happens inside a female dart before eggs are laid?



## stu&shaz (Nov 19, 2009)

Essentially what I'm trying to find out is how long do dart eggs take to develope and how long they can be stored for inside the female,if they can be stored that is? My hunch says that a female dart must be ready to lay for some periods in the year,able to store eggs,hence when we see a drop in barometric pressure we get eggs,almost instantly, coinciding with rains,or eggs just after a female has been moved and there is the breed at all costs,keep the genes alive senario,because the world might end. I realise that food can be a big stimulus in egg laying. I'm trying to find out more about the workings inside the female. This has been prompted by thoughts about egg binding and what would happen if i removed a male for example and the female was about to lay....what happens to the eggs does she reabsorb them,can she become egg bound does she just lay an infertile clutch and maybe even eat them?
I don't have any frogs with problems...well to the best of my knowledge,all going great just pondering as ever,trying to be armed with abit more knowledge.

thanks as always for all help given
regards
Stu


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## stu&shaz (Nov 19, 2009)

I hope i'm not too premature in popping this back up,has anyone got any imput.Hell it was hard not to say thoughts there 

thanks as always
Stu


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## frogface (Feb 20, 2010)

I would love to hear the answers to this, as well.


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## Buddysfrogs (Mar 29, 2012)

I subscribed to find the answer lol. 

2.2 bassleri 2.3 E.A Santa Isabella 1.1 tinctorious Patricia 0.1 Green Sipplewini


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Once the eggs are yolked and covered with a gel coat, they are not reabsorbable and yes, they can form adhesions which prevent the frog from passing the clutch which can result in infections (occasionally a form of "egg yolk peritonitus") I've attached a picture of a Atelopus zeteki which has formed adhesions and cannot pass the remainder of the clutch of eggs. 

Ed


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Egg formation is triggered by availability of fat reserves so egg formation doesn't begin until the conditions are appropriate to trigger yolking so as long as the frog has the reserves it is effectively prepped and ready to go when conditions are met. In captivity, people tend to keep the frogs at conditions which are conducive for breeding year round which results in egg yolking, which if not deposited can result in adhesions.. In the picture above, the female zeteki had retained those eggs for more than a year, and on an anecdotal basis, I've seen Desmognathus m. monticola retain eggs for more than 5 years..... 

Ed


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## hypostatic (Apr 25, 2011)

So the best way to prevent this sort of complication would be to not overfeed your frogs, correct?

If you notice that a female frog is "swollen with eggs" should you increase misting to encourage it to pass the eggs?


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## Bfrog (May 5, 2010)

This is an awesome thread...

So is having a male present one of the _required_conditions?

I had a healthy female azureus under breeding conditions by herself for a couple of years... It seems like the presence of a male is required To stimulate egg laying. So can these adhesions occur in solo females if conditions are kept favorable for years at a time without the presence of a male frog? Can females release eggs without the presence of a male? (obviously they wouldn't be fertile)... I've never seen either of these so I would think a male presence would also be required to stimulate egg yolking or would it be required for just the gel coat formation? - would single females simply reabsorb the eggs before gel coating?

You guys have sparked my curiosity.

Boyd


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## Physalaemus (Apr 11, 2012)

I can't speak specifically for darts, but the frogs I studied in grad school (_Physalaemus_) and the tree frogs I study now carry two sets of ova at a time during the breeding season: a very immature set (for the next reproductive bout) and a set that are almost ready for copulation. Final maturation of the eggs is dependent on entering a chorus (assembly of calling males) and copulation. 

Females deprived of physical/auditory access to males never mature those eggs. Females that were allowed to hear males, but not physically interact with them would occasionally release eggs spontaneously the following morning. Females that had been amplexed by males naturally but had the males removed by us would release eggs spontaneously the next morning nearly 100% of the time. 

Egg-binding happened very infrequently, but much moreso with females that were chemically-induced to mature those ova.

I too am curious to get an answer on darts


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## jeeperrs (Jan 14, 2010)

Ed said:


> Once the eggs are yolked and covered with a gel coat, they are not reabsorbable and yes, they can form adhesions which prevent the frog from passing the clutch which can result in infections (occasionally a form of "egg yolk peritonitus") I've attached a picture of a Atelopus zeteki which has formed adhesions and cannot pass the remainder of the clutch of eggs.
> 
> Ed


Ed, what did you do to help the frog or can anything be done?


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## frogface (Feb 20, 2010)

Yes! More info like that ^


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Physalaemus said:


> Females deprived of physical/auditory access to males never mature those eggs. Females that were allowed to hear males, but not physically interact with them would occasionally release eggs spontaneously the following morning. Females that had been amplexed by males naturally but had the males removed by us would release eggs spontaneously the next morning nearly 100% of the time.


Please excuse my rambling, I've got a bad headache so it's making it harder to proof my response. 

Spontaneous egg release by a female is reported more often in certain taxa (Ceratobatrachus guentheri is one example) in captive populations than in others.. Even after working with an extensive amphibian collection at a zoo, I have to say that I saw very few cases of spontaneous egg deposition in multiple taxa (Pipa parva, Mantella aurantiaca, Ceratobatrachus guentheri, Atelopus hoogmoedi (although this incidence was a prolapse of the eggs resulting in death) and A. zeteki), and many more incidences of retention (several hylids, A. zeteki, Anaxyrus quercicus, Ambystom opacum, Desmognathus m. monticola, Plethodon jordani, Leptodactylus pentadactylus) that occured both in the presence and absence of a calling male. With respect to exposure to a call being required for egg maturation, I'd have to dig around but I suspect that is going to be heavily dependent on species and how the sexes gather together to spawn. For example dendrobatids tend to be distributed together in appropriate habitat (and tadpole deposition sites are often very important in determining distribution in several taxa, so females may be exposed to calls/courtship signals (movement of males' vocal pouch) fairly consistently (or Atelopus females can be amplexed by males for weeks before they move down to spawn)But let's get back to dendrobatids... 

As with a number of other anurans, reproduction in costly in terms of metabolic reserves so in the wild, males tend to only call for a period of time and the females are laying eggs for a set period of time during the appropriate seasons. For example, the populations of tinctorius studied here Phyllomedusa: Journal of Herpetology - Abrigos durante a estação seca e mudanças na dieta do sapo-veneno-de-flecha Dendrobates tinctorius (Anura: Dendrobatidae) were only reproductive for a few weeks before they ceased breeding. We don't see this behaviors reported in captive dendrobatids (for example, there are anecdotal reports of females tinctorius laying clutches every 7-14 days for all of a year (or in the example of O. pumilio, reports of females laying multiple egg clutches for fertilization when wild populations do not produce fertile clutches while feeding tadpoles) or most of a year) and males call virtually daily....) 

So if calls are important, it is likely that the females are going to be exposed to calls even when not paired up with a male since many hobbyists keep multiple animals often of the same species but different populations (for patterns) so it is likely that they would be triggered even without a male present in the cage.... 

Some comments,

Ed


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

jeeperrs said:


> Ed, what did you do to help the frog or can anything be done?


Once adhesions have formed? Surgery. In the case of that toad, a treatment of hormones was administered in case she was retaining the eggs for reasons other than adhesions. Major surgery to remove the eggs in the case of that toad would have resulted in death in any case (based on the necropsy report after death). 

Ed


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## frogface (Feb 20, 2010)

Physalaemus said:


> ...
> 
> Females deprived of physical/auditory access to males never mature those eggs. Females that were allowed to hear males, but not physically interact with them would occasionally release eggs spontaneously the following morning. Females that had been amplexed by males naturally but had the males removed by us would release eggs spontaneously the next morning nearly 100% of the time.
> ...


This is very interesting. I have witnessed my tinc Lorenzo female and my pumilio female with their bellies slightly writhing and/or contracting while the male calls, from a location away from them. I've meant to ask if calling stimulates the female, but, was afraid it was a stupid question.


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## Buddysfrogs (Mar 29, 2012)

I had the same question too Kris lol

2.2 bassleri 2.3 E.A Santa Isabella 1.1 tinctorious Patricia 0.1 Green Sipplewini


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## stu&shaz (Nov 19, 2009)

A huge thanks to all,some fascinating insight here. Ed heartfelt thanks even with a bad headache for your time.

this has all been prompted by me staring at our pr of summersi,watching her very much looking gravid trying to court her male,stroking a bit of head bobbing and following him about,but he seems not really interested ,i have wondered about whether to take on board advice given here to split them for a while,hence my concearns about the effect of this on her. she has laid once here but the eggs had turned bad in viv,when i found them so i don't yet know whether they were fertilised. As this latest bout of courtship was so recent i'll leave things as they are and keep hoping.
regards
Stu


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