Scaphiophryne Gottlebei

[clownonfire]

Corey, thank you for taking the time to elaborate on Scaphiophryne gottlebei. I'll wait for Seth's reply before commenting.

Eric

[SethD]

Got into this thread a little late, so pardon my excessive quoting!

No problem, it makes it easier to respond specifically.

Yes, that has been clear with many species. Getting males to call and have them amplex is easy (often just misting them or tossing them into the rain chamber). The issue has been cycling the females so they have eggs, and then getting them to lay. I would be very interested in cycling and laying information that you have - there isn't really anything out there about it in captivity

I have had decent success with cycling a number of different species of explosive breeders, my attempts to success ratio with the explosive breeders I have worked with(mostly toads) is probably around 10-15%. Doesn't sound very high but if you have a good size group and cycle them properly it usually has worked out I get at least one spawning within no more than two or three tries. As far as cycling females properly some type of variation on the method described in my M. stelzneri article on this forum is usually what I do. It is a generic method that works for many species with minor tweaking based on an educated guess about what the species can handle and what it might require. The key aspects for females are usually low food intake, drier conditions, and cooler temps followed by greatly increasing food intake and returning temps to normal for somewhere around 10 days to a week followed by a rain chamber. Some females will swell with eggs but not spawn for one reason or another but usually if you have a couple of females and try this two or three times you will be able to get at least one female to spawn. At least that has been my experience. You could probably make it almost a sure thing every time through proper cycling and hormones to induce reluctant egg filled females to lay but I have no ability to obtain the proper hormones and therefore have never gone that route.

Could you be more descriptive of their set up and feeding preferences? Short of letting them dig, having a water bowl, and feeding them commonly available food items, particular notes are lacking. Many people have kept them alive for a while, but we're trying to determine what would have them thrive and breed. I'm not sure how tossing them in coco fiber (moist? dry? moist area and dry side? no one says!) with a water bowl is the healthiest thing for them.

I personally like natural earth setups for everything. I do not like coco fiber except occasionally as a soil ingredient. It tends to stick to the frogs and just doesn't seem to work well. When I kept this species I personally used local topsoil mixed with sand, leaf litter, pothos, and a couple of small tropical garden center plants I forget the name of. Humidity was pretty high. They seemed to do ok with that but like mantellas they seemed to stress out when it got to warm. Since it is frequently warm in texas I quit working with a number of years ago since I did not feel like going to the pains necessary to keep them in the 70's or cooler.

I recommend reading the Scaphiophryne gottlebei species profile on the IUCN Red List website. This is one of the few species that actually lists over-collection for the pet trade as a major threat, and listed as the FIRST major threat, not as one mentioned in passing. They are even talking about the LEGAL pet trade, not even implying smuggling. This was how they were assessed in 2008 - when they had a limited export quota of 1000 since at least 2005! To add insult to injury, the whole area they exist in is under threat due to habitat destruction and modification both in and surrounding their range (only part of which is protected - but even the protected areas are being influenced by the areas around them). Mantella expectata (which is from the same area, though more at the entrance to the canyons than the canyons themselves) also has the same threats listed in their IUCN profile, but they mention "It is actively sought after for the pet trade, and during the rainy season up to several thousand specimens can be collected. Such collecting might pose a major threat to the species, but this has not, as yet, been demonstrated." This was the SAME ASSESSMENT that was done for S. gottlebei, which means when they talk about the pet trade as a threat in the Hopper profile, it's a demonstrated influence!

That is possible but see, here is the thing, I just don't see those sort of numbers showing up in the pet trade and have not for years. Now in the late 90's and early 2000's I saw very large numbers in the pet trade and prices were in the 18-30$ range at that time. They were common in the trade and easy to get. After they became a CITES species the number I saw in the trade was drastically reduced and prices rose to the 45-60$ range. As time has passed fewer and fewer have been showing up and prices have now risen to where they are now. A 60-100$ frog if you can find them. My personal opinion, and this is just an educated guess based on having a halfway decent understanding on what is and isn't imported and how common or uncommon a given frog is in the trade, is that the current listing and status evaluation is based on what used to be not what actually is. I have a certain suspicion that the biggest reason this species is evaluated in the way it is is because it was once collected in quite large numbers, has a limited distribution, and is very colorful and so makes a good "poster child". I am very skeptical that a fast maturing(I had some very small wc specimens that reached adult size within eight months) explosive breeder that lays good size clutches of eggs(as is typical with explosive breeders) can really be threatened by over collection except in the most extreme situations where the habitat is extremely limited and collection rates are extremely high(such as if it suddenly became legal to collect bufo exsul and there was high demand). I strongly suspect with most fast maturing explosive breeders habitat quality, and perhaps the introduction of a devastating illness (like chytrid) to a previously unexposed population are the only serious threats to the species. Unless collection levels are absolutely ridiculous it is probably a non-issue. Such species usually have a high mortality rate in the wild and the ability to rapidly recover from population dips if the conditions and habitat is suitable.

Due to the before mentioned IUCN Red List section and CITES information, the $100/frog price is probably here to stay, and may even go up.

Very possible, but I wouldn't be surprised to find them cheaper either.

The demand actually seems to be more than the supply at the moment, or they wouldn't be $100/frog and still selling out quickly.

True. But demand is still pretty small, just the numbers imported are even smaller.

I wouldn't say the smaller numbers is suddenly encouraging the chances of them being CB, because people have tried on and off for 10 years to breed these guys - an explosive breeder even at $35 can be a money maker. Look at the pac man frogs, Milk frogs, Red-Eyed Leaf Frog, and Clown TF for example... they can be pretty darn cheap as froglets, require a lot of work, some are even still imported in massive quantities, yet multiple people are breeding them and selling them successfully.

Part of that is because, with the exception of the various tropical tree frogs that will often breed with only good feeding and a rain chamber, there are only a relative handful of people breeding those species. Most of the thousands of CB horned frogs, tomato frogs, budgetts frogs, "pixie" frogs etc. in the pet trade are produced by just a couple of breeders. That is why some of those species will suddenly be unavailable for a while only to re-appear in a few months. The main(or only) breeders didn't breed them for a while and the supply ran dry. Very, very few hobbyists breed explosive breeders that require cycling. Since there are so few successful breeders of such species and they are making a good bit of money with what they are producing they tend to rarely work with new species and rarely share their methods in much detail. They tend to be businessmen as much as hobbyists.

The difference now is that organizations are getting involved such as zoos and nonprofits like TWI - a sign to me that the general population in the hobby can't figure it out, so they are getting the specialists that breed the weird stuff involved... and if you know about the bology of these guys, they are pretty damn weird (which is why they are an EDGE species). Their tadpole was described as a new type, and that's pretty damn impressive!

To be honest even most "specialists that breed weird stuff" have never bred anything but poison frogs and neo-tropical tree frogs with a handful of exceptions. The "general population of the hobby" by and large if we are talking numbers only picked up their frog as a pet and has never bred any species. The amphibian hobby as a whole is very primitive as far as its abilities or desire to breed difficult species or even only moderately difficult species. Large numbers of commonly imported and fairly popular species have never, or only rarely and sometimes accidentally, been bred. Examples would include the megophrys group, the two phrynomerus species in the trade, most bufonids in the trade, the two Kassina species in the trade, pipa pipa, etc. Give even most of the "specialists that breed weird stuff" a dozen healthy pipa pipa for example and tell them to figure out a way to breed them successfully at least once in the next twelve months and they will probably have no success even though that species has been fairly commonly kept and occasionally bred(usually by accident) since at least the fifties from what I understand(I don't go back that far lol). Now I am not saying I am something special either, I am just expressing the general lack of abilities of even the part of the hobby at the higher end of the scale. Until the last several years even the interest of "advanced" hobbyists in breeding explosive breeders has been minimal. They pretty much just stuck with breeding poison frogs and maybe a couple other things. Over the last 10 years or so though the numbers of different types of tropical tree frogs being commonly bred has increased and that at least was a step in the right direction. I am hopeful with time and increasing interest explosive breeders will begin to be bred more often too.

[Tony]

I am hopeful with time and increasing interest explosive breeders will begin to be bred more often too.

Convince people to pay a decent price for them. It takes a huge amount of time and money to raise the large clutches from explosive breeders, and the hobby at large is not willing to pay any more than they would for a half-dead import. I had wholesalers offering me $3 per froglet for my last batch of A. annae, a frog that was nearly extinct in the hobby two years ago, what do you think a little brown bufonid would bring in?

[SethD]

I had wholesalers offering me $3 per froglet for my last batch of A. annae, a frog that was nearly extinct in the hobby two years ago, what do you think a little brown bufonid would bring in?

Having a few 2nd generation CB little brown(which was disappointing as I was hoping for leucistic) bufonids that morphed out just a little while ago I assure you not much if I even bothered offering them for sale. That isn't why most of us do it though. It is a hobby not a business. Pipa pipa, rococo toads, or several other species would probably sell ok for a while if one was to put effort into breeding those. So would the suriname atelopus that have been recently been imported again as they will tap into the poison frog fanciers market. Part of my point was that the market is pretty small overall and quickly saturated except the market for frogs that can be considered "pets" sold to people who have no other frogs. Even that market would be saturated pretty quickly if it wasn't for the fact that there are so few breeders.

[clownonfire]

I personally like natural earth setups for everything. I do not like coco fiber except occasionally as a soil ingredient. It tends to stick to the frogs and just doesn't seem to work well. When I kept this species I personally used local topsoil mixed with sand, leaf litter, pothos, and a couple of small tropical garden center plants I forget the name of. Humidity was pretty high. They seemed to do ok with that but like mantellas they seemed to stress out when it got to warm. Since it is frequently warm in texas I quit working with a number of years ago since I did not feel like going to the pains necessary to keep them in the 70's or cooler.

Seth, any other information you have on the housing setup? Did you keep the soil/sand substrate wet all around? Or did you create micro-habitats around the tank? What size of enclosures did you use? Or from the best of your knowledge, what would you say is the ideal setup for them, without saying the bigger is better? They are known to climb on rocks when not burrowed.... Were there any rocks and did you observe that behavior? Were any other branches laid for hiding spots when burrowed? I've read that high humidity was not a determining factor, as long as the substrate remained somewhat moist, while other resources claim that maintaining very high humidity is key. Did you observe any signs of stress in either very high or dryer setups?

I have also found this article (from Brent Brock) on our sister site Caudata.org. It dates to 2009 and I don't know if this project is still going with TWI.

[bshmerlie]

I personally don't see them going over a $100 bucks. Rare doesn't always mean high price....demand does. I don't think there is going to huge popularity swing for them and as Seth said there's not enough advanced hobbiest out there with an interest in working with them. I think we just need to get one or two solid breeders being successful with them and that would be able to handle the demand for them in the hobby. So if they are cut off it wouldn't matter....well, at least not to the hobby anyway.

[clownonfire]

I personally don't see them going over a $100 bucks. Rare doesn't always mean high price....demand does. I don't think there is going to huge popularity swing for them and as Seth said there's not enough advanced hobbiest out there with an interest in working with them. I think we just need to get one or two solid breeders being successful with them and that would be able to handle the demand for them in the hobby. So if they are cut off it wouldn't matter....well, at least not to the hobby anyway.

Actually, as for solid hobbyists/breeders wanting to work with them, there are already more than a few I know who would jump on the occasion. Valerie Clark and Corey have shown interest if the right papers are behind the frogs. I know Michael Lawrence has also shown interest. There was Ed Kowalski back then... There's a friend of mine closer to home which received 3 this week and is planning on having 6 and working on breeding them (can't name him yet, I'll wait till he comes out of the closet himself). And there's me. Not a serious breeder, yet. Again, I know a breeding project was picked up by TWI a few years back, I'd like to know if this project is still going.... Actually, I'll inquire today!

Eric

[bshmerlie]

Im not saying that no one is interested in them but it would probably only take one or two successful breeders to handle the demand for them in the entire hobby.

[clownonfire]

I have exchanged with Brent Brock this morning from TWI, and here's what he had to say about the project:

"The gottlebei program is still active but seriously stalled because we haven’t been able to obtain enough specimens to attempt any breeding. (...) Very briefly, I can tell you that a couple of zoos have been successful in getting frogs to spawn without hormones and producing tadpoles. But tadpole mortality has been 100% (unless there have been successes I’m unaware of in the last year).(...) But as I recall, a rain chamber was used to stimulate breeding. In nature the species appears to respond to floods."

Brent will drop by to add more on this.

Eric