Welcome to the forum Stephen. I've just been admiring your photo albums - thank you for gracing our site with your lovely photos.

I've never kept Scaphiophryne species before, but I have kept other Microhylids. In fact this genus is poorly known in captivity - they do get imported as you are aware, which is somewhat saddening considering how vulnerable Scaphiophryne marmorata is in the wild.

I expect their care is similar to the Microhylids found on Madagascar. Here's what I would do.

Provide them with a warm vivarium (mid to late-ish 20s Celsius/77-83 F is a good range) with a layer of at least 5 cm (2 inches) of substrate in which to burrow - a nice humus-rich topsoil without artificial additives would be ideal. You could use coconut fibre but aside from the fact that this is a poor approximation of tropical soil, it loses moisture very quickly, thus causing unnaturally rapid changes in the terrarium's conditions. To heat this terrarium don't use an under tank pad - in all likelihood these frogs will spend a lot of time buried, where it's supposed to be cooler rather than warmer. Under tank heating in a "burying" species' vivarium also leads to drying out from the bottom-up, and can lead to fire risks due to the inability of the heat to dissipate. If heating is necessary I advise you to use a low wattage daylight bulb (not the true heating kind – those are too good at their job for most amphibians). Provide a vented lid and mist every day or two to keep the humidity up – to establish what’s a good level, I would mist the tank every 3 days at first and see if the frogs are active If not, increase to every 2 days, observe, and then increase to every day if necessary – constantly too moist is often not a good thing.

You can provide hides and such but I doubt the frogs will use them much, preferring to bury themselves. Plants, live or artificial, can be used to provide ground cover. We have a nice thread all about vivarium plants elsewhere on the forum.

Food-wise, I don’t believe these have any special requirements but they may be more inclined to feed at night, at least at first.

Good luck with them – they are a fascinating genus and I am quite envious of you!