Species mixing..... at the Zoo?

[Mattiez]

Disclaimer: I am not advocating species mixing of any sort, I just wanted to get your opinions on somethings I saw this weekend.

This weekend after doing some birding (saw wood ducks galore as well as a crested night heron) and feeding ducks & geese we went to the Zoo. Anyone who's been to Chicago knows the area around Lincoln Park Zoo (one of the last free zoos in the country) is very nice, and consists of a long stretch of parks, harbors and lagoons. Any way, I like to drop by every now and then and check out their amphibians. They have a bunch of bufo americanus, some bombina, and tincs. All of these species were housed individually in decent enclosures. The next display was nothing new to me been there for years, but after spending time on these forums it rang a new bell for me. In the tank was a Madagascar Leaf frog as well as this huge skink. I forgot exactly what he was, and do not recall where he was from. The display next to them had Hyla Versicolors with some box tortoises I think. I thought turtles carried lots of e coli on them, wouldn't this be potentially harmful to delicate amphibians like tree frogs?

I suppose depending on where the skink is from, these mixtures could occur in nature, but to me, a 3 foot tank seems too small to recreate such things....

What do you guys think? Are there any types of frogs that can be housed safely with each other or other animals?

[John]

The furthest I would go with mixing is putting a Barking Treefrog with a Gray Treefrog. I feel that mixing other things is just inviting problems, even if it seems to work.

[Mattiez]

Even Zoos get it wrong, that's terrible. Everyone who sees it is going to think, "oh wow, I can throw some frogs in with my turtles, cool..."

[Ra]

A Zoo in my area had four different kinds of Poison Dart Frogs housed in a single terrarium no larger than a 20 gallon long. It seemed questionable to me.
I would never house any kind of a Toad with any other kind of animal due to their toxic secretions, the same goes for many species of Salamander, especially Efts and Fire Salamanders.
I've seen (in very very VERY LARGE vivaria) Green and Brown Anoles, House Geckos, Green and Barking Tree Frogs, as well as Grey Tree Frogs and other small Tree Frogs all housed in the same enclosure. The Enclosure was a living vivarium with lots of space for each creature. The Brown Anoles dwelled near the flooring, the Geckos stuck to the back wall and sides, the Green Anoles basked near the top all while the Tree Frogs slept tucked away during the day. At night the Tree Frogs, all of which were similar in size, would leap around looking for crickets. Each species had its own niche, were all gathered from the same area of Florida, and were of similar size. The Vivarium was alive with plants and living mosses and a pump driven water system.

[Mattiez]

That sounds exciting, I'd love to see pics!

[StephenLS]

I'd only consider mixing species from different niches!

I've been considering for some time now the possibility of creating a tall aquaterrarium with a relatively large, deep and heavily planted water area that could contain African Dwarf Clawed Toads and Reed Frogs. In theory the only contact would potentially be at the waters surface!

Any thoughts?