Re: Scaphiophryne Gottlebei
Hi John,Originally Posted by John
Agreed that microhylids tend to be secretive, but with respect to S. gottlebei I have actually found them to be pretty active and bold if you are willing to stay up after dark to watch them.
I think this cynicism is warranted. But my experience with TWI indicates that the potential is there for hobbyists to make a real difference. The challenge has been that to effectively utilize a large number of volunteers in a collaborative effort, you need coordinators. For TWI that is a full-time job and nobody has the ability to volunteer themselves to a full-time job. If we could raise enough $ to pay 1-2 coordinators, we'd see the effectiveness of hobbyist contributions to conservation escalate. But that doesn't mean there isn't an all volunteer approach that will work. The S. gottlebei project is an attempt to try something a little different.I've always been very cynical regarding what captive hobbyists can really contribute to the conservation of a species in the wild. TWI hasn't helped change that. I was a member for a while and I'm good friends with several TWI members. I've got a lot of time for the membership.
This shouldn't be a problem. Twenty unrelated founders typically will capture 96% of the genetic alleles found in a population. I think the real issue is making sure we have enough breeding groups to provide stability. We all know the problems when all of our founders are sitting in one breeder's living room.Based on the export quota, is it realistic to even get enough founder specimens to have a genetically viable population, even if there is much breeding success?
Agreed, but it can be more difficult for species that have not been successfully bred and for which there are no data for survival rates.A great point was made about culling explosive breeders. It's a hard thing to do but I've had the displeasure of culling large numbers of tadpoles (think New World Bufo levels of eggs) for the benefit of raising 100 or so healthy specimens. It's hard but necessary, and as was pointed out, the survival rate for these explosive breeders from egg to adult is almost 0.
This would definately be worth exploring although I could see where it would add a new challenge on the backend of the operation. To actually demonstrate the ability to replace the WC market with CB animals, the CB animals would have to be offered to wholesalers at competitive prices. So they would need to be available in lots large enough to satisfy the wholesalers. It's the ugly side of the equation but reflects reality.What makes more sense to me would be distributing young tadpoles (or eggs, since these are often less fragile) among hobbyists. I expect the hatch time for this species is something in the region of 48 hours or less, but with the right support structure in place, there's no reason why us amateur hobbyists couldn't shoulder the burden of raising the excess tads provided a method for raising them is devised by one of you pros.
I don't believe the tadpole description was published when the early attempts were made so even less was known than now. I know a number of zoos obtained specimens in 2009 and those animals would have presumably been old enough for breeding in 2010 but I haven't attempted to follow up on successes or failures.I'm a bit surprised that zoo would have kept them in "standard" set ups after the description of the tadpole was published - the need for the sand seems pretty important given the description
Unless of course they made a similar assumption as mentioned already and just assumed a Microhylid is a Microhylid and gave them greenwater/sera micron. Sand substrates have also been shown to be eaten and "digested" by a number of other captive species, and they only skim the top, not bury themselves in it LOL. Guess we'll just have to see when more are bred. Diatom population explosions in the sand and greenwater would be pretty classic after a heavy rain into the whole the tadpoles are laid in, both are readily cultured in captivity, and there are multiple synthetic foods that could be fed in the filter stage as well (sera micron, algae pastes, golden pearls, xenopus granuals, etc).
Brent
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