Uh Oh. Gonna have babies

[alane]

here is a photo of the first toadlet to emerge. the little one is many many days ahead of the rest.



you cannot see it in this photo but the little one still has quite a tail.

i believe he has been 'nipped' at by hungry adults. as the toadlet emerges at the margin of the water, it can be very tempting for a nearby frog to strike.
but these frogs have no teeth and although i've seen them get another frog, it always gets coughed back up in short order.
amazingly, even with the adults, they seem to emerge just fine in this tank.

i expect the bulk of this froglets egg-batch siblings to emerge in about a week, so far ahead is this one toadlet. amazing that one decided to develop real fast.

it takes so long for their skin to develop. the full-adults have a fairly coarse pattern to their bumps. the sub-adults still have a more fine-grained texture. the babies, in comparison, are gelatinous.

[zakdat]

This is really fascinating. I love the pic of the froglet - too cute. Look forward to seeing the rest of the clutch emerge.


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[alane]

now every time i visit my tank, i count the little frogs.

each time, i count more. it is the week of mass emergence.

lol.

fire belly toads have little white dots at the tip of their toes, even as adults. they have this coloration from the very beginning. you can kind of see in the photo how the very tips of the froglets toes are white. for some reason, this seems super cute. i'll try to highlight it in a photo later on.

[alane]

a dozen emerged tiny toadlets. they huddle in groups and have found their safe spots in the tank. most have tail remnants.

i wave something in front of the most advanced toadlet. it snaps at it. little tiny froggy is ready to eat flies. i have nothing for him today...

good thing that i ordered melanogaster flies and they are arriving tomorrow.

I wonder how to get a video of them eating flies. It's a challenge as the toadlets are so small!

my scheme is to feed the adults first and try to get them all full of crickets...so that the flies end up going mostly to the little tykes.

the small toadlets seem so small and fragile that an adult could easily screw one up. but i've never seen that happen. worst i've seen is a froglet getting snapped at...then getting spit back out unharmed. these frogs have no teeth, nor do they clamp down hard. so even if one does a mistake and eats a baby, it all ends well...so far anyway.

so far, literally 100% viability.

i gotta find homes for some of these subadults or i gotta start a second tank.