Scaphiophryne Gottlebei

[kerokero]

I highly doubt they come with any papers though....

Unless you're trying to ship them in or out of the country, you probably don't need the papers, but it's good to ask. All you need to do is just ask the supplier, and they should be able to get it from the importer they bought them from. Usually if I list it as a determining factor on me buying the frogs, people have come through with it.

I doubt the seasonal changes needed for these guys are nearly as drastic as the cycles for bumble bee toads, given their native conditions (which is probably more like a desert spadefoot to be honest), but I can see how the tadpoles would be the hard part. Their life cycle is in the sandy bottom buy day (most likely eating sand for the diatoms) and filter feeding at night, but now one really knows for sure and the tadpoles are likely suffering for it.

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 think a soil substrate may be a bit wet for them... they live in sand. And in holes in rocks. That might have sand. Not really any soil around... high humidity but looks like it would probably be better to have a sand substrate. I know with plants the difference between growing in wet sand and a sandy mix could actually be the difference between thriving and dying of rot. My expectatas seemed to really enjoy a wet sandy substrate as well.

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.

The quotas being mentioned are not the numbers coming to the US, but the number of animals allowed to be EXPORTED - that means right now only 250 a year are allowed to be exported - that's 250 to the entire WORLD. This is why trying to get 25 at one place at one time is so hard, because the exporters aren't sending out much at one time, and are splitting what they are allowed to export to shipments all over the world. The change in amount of animals you're seeing is related to the quotas.

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.

The biggest issue with an explosive breeder with limited breeding spots is the ability to collect almost the entire breeding population in a very short of time - even as little as one day. You just go an pick up every animal you find - it will basically be just about every sexually mature male in that population, and a good portion of the females. What would be left of the population is just whatever females happened to be migrating to or from the breeding spot, and whatever juveniles that were away from the breeding areas. Under ideal conditions (like the population not being touched again), it will still take years for the population to recover back to it's original state. It is possible to devastate, and even destroy, an explosive breeding population by pulling the breeders before the majority of them have bred, and doing it year after year so that the breeding pool cannot recover and will eventually fail. Usually in larger populations of a species a collector has the option of hitting different breeding spots so that they can hit a new spot with a high yield (since the spot hit before would have a lower yield), but with a tiny population you don't have that option. Gottlebei is just that type of population - it's super concentrated when breeding (which is the only time it can be collected in any number), and they only have 5 spots they occur from.

The other rule with explosive breeders is that they have tons of young, because only a minute percentage ever makes it do adults - it can be as little as one animal in a clutch or less in some cases. This predation doesn't change, but if the amount of froglets is reduced (like when breeders are removed from the breeding population) the amount of froglets that make it to adults is reduced as well, and you may have no animals from that year that even make it into future breeding populations - it's actually more devastating to a population to remove it's breeders than it's immature offspring (the basis behind the INIBICO project in Peru). This is why explosive breeding populations with low breeder numbers are considered functionally extinct in many cases, as they would need a huge bumper crop of froglets (that the current breeding population cannot produce) so that they have breeder recruitment again (the idea behind Wyoming toad and PR crested toad reintroductions - introducing froglets in large amounts that will hopefully allow some of the animals to survive to breeding age). International collection was uncontrolled, and even after putting a quota on the animal the populations were still in decline (still under the influence of past years of overcollection), so the reduced quota is an effort to allow them to bounce back by preserving more of the breeder population (which is what is collected). If the population continues to decline even after a couple of years of the current quota, they may cut off their exportation completely for a while, like with the golden mantella.

This is a similar issue that has been raised with some Atelopus, which can have very small ranges for some species and populations, very high breeding aggregation, and explosive breeding with low recruitment percentages. Collecting is done in the breeding season when basically the entire mature male population is at the breeding site with females moving in and out. Collecting at one time pulls almost all the males of that area and whatever females are present (this is why the male sex ratio is so high), and whatever females are left may not have males to breed with. This was a valid concern with their conservation... until Chytrid took center stage and made most of it a moot point.

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 point I was mainly trying to make at this point is that most of those frogs are not rare, and especially in the case of RETFs and Clown TFs, still are imported in large numbers - yet there are people breeding them. The rarity of them hasn't been the biggest influence in what frogs are actually popular.

Most hobbyists probably don't have the time or resources to dedicate to breeding a number of these frogs, more than a lack of ability. I know how to breed a number of tropical frogs, but I sure don't have the time or space to care for clutches of agalychnis, rhacophorus, atelopus, or scaphiophryne at the moment. These frogs will usually end up being picked up by a business person whose job it is to feed and clean the huge amount of tads and froglets. I've bred Brasil Milk frogs before - they lay 1500 eggs a pop (believe me, I counted! ), filled up a 65g rubbermaid trashcan, ate the later 3 clutches of eggs before they could hatch (thankfully!), ate each other even with massive amounts of food, and still ended up with around 300 froglets that wanted hydei in huge amounts and it took multiple people to keep up with them. I'm fine with only a couple people breeding these guys, it often only takes that much to supply the hobby. There are WAY more people that CAN breed these animals, they just don't. I wouldn't underestimate the knowledge base of some of the people in the hobby.

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.

As a whole - meaning everyone whose ever kept a frog - then yes, I would agree with you. To say that most specialists that breed weird stuff only have worked only with PDFs and neotropicals tells me either you have a very abnormally large hand, or may not be as familiar with some of the breeding exploits that have gone on over the years. Most of the people that are actively online? Yes, you'll hear about the easy PDFs (some PDFs are seasonal too and are harder to breed, but some breeders choose not to breed them because they will end up with 30+ froglets in a good and they don't want to deal with that many), and neotropical TFs are imported the most and also are some of the most well known, but that's not to say others aren't being breed, or have in the past. I think you're both seriously underestimating some of the people in the hobby (which isn't that hard since they tend to be the ones least active online) and you also took what I said wrong - with that statement I was actually referring to people in Zoos, and there are some people who REALLY know their amphibians. Not everyone (same issue as with the hobby) but there is a good collection of people in both the hobby and the Zoos that when they put their minds to it some crazy things can happen.

You're also mentioning some frogs that have breeding habits that have either never been documented, or were rarely documented and hard to replicate in captivity.

BTW - Pipa pipa and at least one other species (P. parva) have been bred in captivity a number of times since the 50s, and a couple of times even by one hobbyist. Problem is it takes a huge container at least 36" deep to do it for their courtship ritual (which is well documented) and why bother since the low demand is filled by the imported P. pipa. He stopped breeding them thinking someone else would breed his P. parva since they were so easy, and they since disappeared from the hobby.

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.

Most of the breeders I know that may have passing interest in explosive breeders pass them up because they are explosive (200-5,000 tads!), not because they don't think they can do it. A PDF puts out way less tadpoles that require way less work, much easier to deal with when it's a hobby, even the neotropical TFs have relatively low clutch sizes (like agalychnis). The frogs with lower reproduction rates are both easier and more consistant to breed, and also consistently less work (explosive breeders are probably the same amount of work and tads, just concentrating a years worth into a month or two!). Unless you have a lot of time on your hands, even ONE clutch of an explosive breeder will take a toll on either your work life, social life, or both. Been there, done that, and I *really* like my boyfriend so I'd rather tank him than cleaning tadpole poop

The increased rate of neotropical TFs available is kinda ironic to mention... it's primarily the couple of "explosive" frog breeders just expanding the amount of frogs they work with, and the species aren't even that explosive... most of those species are actually not considered explosive as they are low clutch amounts (under 200) and repeat clutchers throughout the season (referred to as prolonged breeders - PDFs just take that style to a whole new level).

To be honest - what I see as the biggest barrier to explosive breeders is that the attempts with them so far have been riddled with issues that have not been totally overcome - typically with figuring out the triggers for successfully spawning (repeated and high rate of spawning among females), small froglet/toadlet sizes (particularly with toads like Atelopus and the Bumble Bees) and tadpole care (Atelopus being hillstream, the Ornate hoppers being psammonektonic).

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?

These guys are from a high humidity, fast draining, very sandy, rather dark, barely vegetated (if at all - did I mention dark?) group of almost cave-like canyons. In talking to a friend who is familiar with those systems, it was recommended to think like a cave LOL. Rainwater may also be key, and water values would be good to get since the formations include limestone. Sandy substrate wicks water to a degree, but does not stay soggy, and works very different than a soil-like substrate, so it may be an idea to just have sand with water at the bottom (dig out a pond area for access to the water directly), rocks to help keep a majority of the sand where you want, and an elevated cave like area to wedge in and provide a dry hide spot if they want. I finally found habitat pics of these guys (in part of a .pdf, need to figure out which one) and it basically was Franco in what you could easily mistake for a cave!

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.

There are definitely a number of people who have an interested in working with them, and I do agree that it would likely take only a few people really breeding them regularly to take most of the pressure off the wild population and satisfy the hobby. Hopefully at least one would ship worldwide and that would fix that issue... now if we could only get the tads to live...

.I wonder why the 100% mortality rate with the tadpoles? Have they done any tests on water quality in their natural habitat, maybe even the water composition, to figure this out?

I would love to know how they were trying to feed them too, they have such an oddball lifestyle...

[bbrock]

Hi guys,

Eric alerted me to this thread so I figured I chime in a little.

Regarding the tadpole mortality, I think Corey is spot on. It appears that these tadpoles are filter feeders and biofilm scrapers. This is based, in part, on information passed to us by Franco Andreone who probably has as much field experience with this species as anyone. Therefore, having a well established and cycled rearing tank may be an important factor. Unfortunately I have misplaced the emails I have from the zoos that had partial success but I recall their tad rearing setups were pretty "standard".

As for substrate, Corey is again correct that a sand substrate seems best. I tried mine on Cagefresh which they hated despite the fact they had been kept successfully for over a year on Cagefresh with good results. On sand, they spend most of the daylight hours burrowed under and come out to feed at night. However, given the choice, the seem to prefer climbing into crevices which are a bit dryer than damp sand. I learned this the hard way after 2 of my specimens suddenly went down and out after many months of appearing perfectly healthy. I suspect the chronically damp conditions weren't to their liking. After giving the remaining specimen a choice, she rarely spends any time under the sand but prefers to wedge in crevices in a stack of cork bark by day. At night she moves to the water to soak and on the sand to hunt.

I may also be able to offer a little clarification about their status in the wild. If my memory is correct, at one point they were listed as Critically Imperiled on the IUCN Red List but have been downgraded to Endangered. The reason for the listing is primarily because of their limited range and apparently declining population. POTENTIAL for overcollecting is also listed as a consideration. In futher investigation, I've found no indication that overcollecting is actually happening, but the potential is certainly there for the reasons that Corey mentioned (congregation of a large proportion of the breeding population). However, from what I have heard, almost all of the animals exported are juvenile which is why the exports tend to pulse after the froglets emerge. That's a very good thing.

Finally, I don't know how much is known about the TWI project so I'll provide a little blurb. The project was actually encouraged by the Amphibian Ark as a potential way that hobbyists could make a real contribution to wild conservation. The idea is that if hobbyists could produce enough captive offspring to supply market demand, then we would have a great deal of leverage for influencing how they are exploited in the wild. Interestingly, just shutting down wild caught exports may not be the best outcome for conserving wild populations but that is a whole other discussion. We have identified several expected bottlenecks and encountered one unexpected one. The unexpected bottleneck is that we've had a heckuva time getting exporters to come through on delivering animals. So interest in the project has waned because nobody was able to establish a breeding colony. For that reason, I'm happy to see the interest here. For expected bottlenecks, the first will just be getting successful reproduction. Like Corey, I actually don't think that will be too great of a challenge once we have the animals, but we can't assume we are "that good" until we can demonstrate success. The second challenge will be getting breeders to stick with an explosive breeder as Corey mentioned. That's a lot of mouths to feed. And finally, breeders will have to be willing to part with the offspring at wholesale prices. It won't do us any good if we produce twice the export quota but demand 4X the price for offspring. WC animals will simply continue to undercut that market and dominate sales. We will have to demonstrate our ability to control the market before we can have any significant influence on the wild caught trade. It remains to be seen whether the private hobbyist community is up to the challenge.

Brent

[SethD]

I doubt the seasonal changes needed for these guys are nearly as drastic as the cycles for bumble bee toads, given their native conditions (which is probably more like a desert spadefoot to be honest)

Granted.

To say that most specialists that breed weird stuff only have worked only with PDFs and neotropicals tells me either you have a very abnormally large hand, or may not be as familiar with some of the breeding exploits that have gone on over the years.

While I don't understand the meaning of "a very abnormally large hand" in this context I do think I have a decent grasp of what is bred in the hobby and a decent grasp of what CB and WC frogs have hit the market over the past 15 years or so. Thinking about it mantellas might be added to neotropical tree frogs and PDF's but that is about it for "most" of even the advanced hobbyist either because of lack of success or lack of interest in other frogs.

I would be happy to learn otherwise, but the simple fact remains that if such exploits breeding the uncommonly bred explosive breeders were done more than once or twice by hobbyists(zoos excluded due to their policies) they most likely would rapidly become available as CB froglets in the market place. At least for a time until poor sales discouraged future breedings. Occasionally you will see that as was the case with Pedostibes hosei a couple years ago. There was pretty much only two people breeding them and when those two people stopped the CB froglets disappeared from the market.

Most of the breeders I know that may have passing interest in explosive breeders pass them up because they are explosive (200-5,000 tads!)

I do not really understand that logic. If your breeding a species that can lay 5000+ eggs at a time it should be a given your going to cull the vast majority and bring it down to a manageable level of no more than a few hundred. No reason to avoid the species if it otherwise appeals to you. Once having brought the numbers of tads down to a reasonable level you use a large enough body of water that you don't have to do many water changes. Generally with toads species that morph in a month or less I personally only do one maybe two water changes. Other than that I just throw them food twice a day or so and keep a general eye on water quality and I am good to go. Some work, but not that bad. Certainly not as grueling as some would indicate. Obviously the larger the tadpole size prior to morphing and the longer the time to morphing the more work caring for tadpoles which is why I actually prefer working with fast morphers even though that usually means they start out very small. Species that are very picky about water quality are more work too.

To be honest - what I see as the biggest barrier to explosive breeders is that the attempts with them so far have been riddled with issues that have not been totally overcome - typically with figuring out the triggers for successfully spawning (repeated and high rate of spawning among females), small froglet/toadlet sizes (particularly with toads like Atelopus and the Bumble Bees) and tadpole care (Atelopus being hillstream, the Ornate hoppers being psammonektonic).

I pretty much agree with that. I think the main reason explosive breeders are rarely bred is because it it usually takes some fiddling to find what works for you with a given species. It isn't always easy and many people give up if they don't succeed on the first one or two tries and go for something easier.

[clownonfire]

I'd like to thank everyone who's contributed this far on this thread. As I've mentioned to some of you, either by PM, chat, or on this thread, information on S. gottlebei is scarce, often dated, and certainly conflicting from one post to another. If only for the purpose of housing these properly and avoiding fatalities (there's a few Ornate hoppers owners on this board), or for near/future breeding projects, this thread will contribute to a better understanding of the Scaphiophryne gottlebei.

Brent, as you know, I have lots to read, thank you (correct me if I'm wrong, but I haven't seen a breeding protocol in the papers)... It will be part of the basis of this breeding project I'm hoping to jump on soon. I will join TWI shortly. And by all means, stick around, I have a feeling this thread has a few more posts to it (said the French speaking moderator).

Seth and Corey, I'm grateful for your exchanges. It's evident by the information shared by both of you that knowledge on these is far from being consistent.

I'm hoping to work on an article once this is done, and hopefully offer to future readers a more concise how to on these frogs.

Eric

[John]

Eric asked me to chime in on this. I want to thank him for helping to get this discussion going. It's certainly the most interesting thing I've seen on the site in a long time.

While I've some experience with Microhylids, I've never kept the Scaphiophryne genus and I've no immediate intention to do so. I like to choose my captives based on interactivity and/or boldness, and in my experience with Microhylids they are low on both scales. The allure of this species to hobbyists lies in the beautiful coloration and markings, and the chubby frog "look". My main hobby is chasing amphibians in the wild. I've put in 15,000+ miles so far this year driving up and down the eastern half of the US photographing salamanders this spring. Woe betide Madagascar if I ever get there. I would love to see this species in the wild, or even in captivity.

Not having had any personal experience with this genus, I can't contribute much to this discussion. I have noted the ebb and flow of the availability of this species since the late 90s. I think Melanophryniscus stelzneri and Scaphiophryne gottelbei are similar in that respect, and they share a lot in terms of how they're viewed by hobbyists. They also look somewhat similar.

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. However, with a few notable exceptions, I don't think it's unfair to call TWI a dart frog breeders club. I've known of Brent for a long time but I've never had any dealings directly with him, to my recollection. People in the league of Brent, Corey (hi Corey, we met at Scott M's in December), and Seth are few and far between. You guys relegate the rest of us to strictly amateur status. I truly hope that the TWI project proves me wrong though. My one glimmer of hope is the recent flurry of success with M. stelzneri. However the cynic in me knows that most of that success was due the frogs already being cycled in the last 12 months before landing in hobbyist hands. I sincerely doubt the breeding success this past year will be repeated for long.

There's a lot known about filter feeding tadpoles - as far as I'm aware, many (most/all?) Microhylid tadpoles filter feed. And surely some of the folks who breed Xenopus can solve this problem (I think that's already been mentioned in the thread)? It would be fantastic to get this species established in the North American hobby. 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?

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. We might be culling hundreds or thousands of eggs/tadpoles, but the benefit is quite apparent. 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.

Lastly, I think it was Corey who mentioned getting CITES papers from sellers as a condition of purchasing frogs. I wholeheartedly agree but it's hard to find anyone who has the papers, and when you do (all I could think about was Mark Pepper/Understory Enterprises), they won't part with them. I love Mark and what he does but I'm entitled to those CITES papers for my Ranitomeya species. I find it very discouraging when one of the paragons of amphibian conservation won't pass them on, either for logistical reasons or over concern of US customers laundering lines of illegally exported frogs. It really rubs me the wrong way.

[clownonfire]

Lastly, I think it was Corey who mentioned getting CITES papers from sellers as a condition of purchasing frogs. I wholeheartedly agree but it's hard to find anyone who has the papers, and when you do (all I could think about was Mark Pepper/Understory Enterprises), they won't part with them. I love Mark and what he does but I'm entitled to those CITES papers for my Ranitomeya species. I find it very discouraging when one of the paragons of amphibian conservation won't pass them on, either for logistical reasons or over concern of US customers laundering lines of illegally exported frogs. It really rubs me the wrong way.

Thanks John for your input. I've been approached by someone from the hobby closer to home with the potential of getting a small little numbers of these. I don't think I'll get the papers but at this point, I'll probably accept the offer and go from there.

People in the league of Brent, Corey (hi Corey, we met at Scott M's in December), and Seth are few and far between. You guys relegate the rest of us to strictly amateur status.

I couldn't agree more. Corey was kind enough to take me under her wings and I have been learning by leaps and bounds for the past months. Her generosity in sharing information, but also to bring complex info into layman's terms (which is not a talent everyone has) has been tremendously helpful to me. Now Corey will of course say that I'm kissing her buttocks, and won't take the compliment!

Brent, again, same goes to you... And you know why...

Eric

Eric

[kerokero]

I honestly don't have the heart to throw away a lot of perfectly good eggs That's just me though, I figure if I'm going to put in the work to get them to spawn I want to make sure I can handle what they give me. Having very many other tanks of breeding things would put a crimp on my ability to do that, but I've been slowly moving in that direction anyways (with projects looking at amphidromous fish species). Closest I ever got to that was feeding the eggs of later clutches to the first Milk frog clutch... but that's also actually what they do in the wild to survive in those little tree holes!

There's a lot known about filter feeding tadpoles - as far as I'm aware, many (most/all?) Microhylid tadpoles filter feed. And surely some of the folks who breed Xenopus can solve this problem (I think that's already been mentioned in the thread)? It would be fantastic to get this species established in the North American hobby. 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?

These definitely have a filter feeding stage (at night), but I think it's the being buried and munching their way through sand during the day that may be causing some issue (if it's not water quality). If you don't give them sand, I can see how there may be issues. I've raised local Microhylid tads (eastern narrow mouths) successfully with sera micron and they did great! But they don't have that "buried in the sand by day" thing...

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).

Lastly, I think it was Corey who mentioned getting CITES papers from sellers as a condition of purchasing frogs. I wholeheartedly agree but it's hard to find anyone who has the papers, and when you do (all I could think about was Mark Pepper/Understory Enterprises), they won't part with them.

I think this is a lot harder with PDFs since there are only a few people who import/export them and they want to keep the ability to do that, or don't want the papers used in other ways. With other CITES animals, it's almost a given that you'd have the papers so you can prove where they came from! The biggest issue I've had is that they didn't want to give up the name of the importer they were getting animals from which is on the documentation. I believe this information may be able to be blocked out while still allowing the documentation to be viable? It's a challenge, but also a matter of building up a relationship with a seller so that they know you aren't interested in stealing their business. My biggest help was knowing a couple people who know importers who could run an grab me frogs - ideal for picking out the frogs you need from an import (like both sexes!) and also not invested as resellers so they don't care about the other stuff as much.

If this really gets off the ground as an official project it may take having someone with that type of relationship to get the needed animals with paperwork if you need it. My interest in Eric having the CITES is if he eventually bred them we could bring some to the states for bloodlines, and if I had some with papers the same thing applies - it increases the breeding pools on both sides if management is the goal.

As for the small amounts coming in, as long as they KEEP coming in then that's fine (we're running into the same issue with Atelopus). You don't normally get all your founder stock in one import and have them all survive to breed, it would normally take a number of years to build it up. You get some, figure out some of the key points of keeping them happy, you may loose a lot. Next year you get some, you know more so you loose less (hopefully) and your founder stock has expanded and you may be breeding this year too. Year after, yet more animals, and now you're proving out some of the breeding quirks with the original group, and getting year 2s into the breeding pool. You may even have animals already floating around the hobby for a while that may get pulled in that aren't even fresh imports!

My one glimmer of hope is the recent flurry of success with M. stelzneri. However the cynic in me knows that most of that success was due the frogs already being cycled in the last 12 months before landing in hobbyist hands. I sincerely doubt the breeding success this past year will be repeated for long.

There was at least one breeding that was not of fresh imports, and it was a person testing out some of the cycling quirks - lots of good stuff learned. This is a key concept though that is important to remember - getting good spawns out of fresh imports can help a bit (instantly expanded founder stock if you can keep them going), but it's consistently being able to spawn them year after year with the majority of the girls laying, and good fertility that tells you that you know what you're doing. This is why with the recent import of atelopus I've been a little hesitant about spreading around information that was beyond what is in the Golden Frog manual - people beg for this information but it hasn't been tested enough to really know if these things work! People aren't willing to wait three years for a well tested method


Brent - Thank you for the really helpful substrate information! That's the key information that has been missing from the care of Ornate Hopper information, and probably what can really make the difference on success or not with these guys long term.

I can understand their dislike of the CareFresh - my hognoses did too. I think it was because it was so lightweight that digging in it didn't feel right to them.

[clownonfire]

I started a new thread on the build of the Scaphiophryne gottlebei's tank I'm starting. The motives are explained in that thread. I'm counting on your inputs.

Thanks all,

Eric

[bbrock]

While I've some experience with Microhylids, I've never kept the Scaphiophryne genus and I've no immediate intention to do so. I like to choose my captives based on interactivity and/or boldness, and in my experience with Microhylids they are low on both scales. The allure of this species to hobbyists lies in the beautiful coloration and markings, and the chubby frog "look".

Hi 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'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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

Brent

[clownonfire]

Hi 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.




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.



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.



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.



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.

Brent

Thanks Brent, again for these very well stated facts. As you know, we started a building tank project on this board and a Facebook group with hobbyists from different boards, and some of your TWI members. As always, any input will be great,and we're quite happy to be collaborating with you, Ron Skylstad and TWI on this one.

Eric

[Ron]

Hey everyone, it's good to see enthusiasm for this species being rekindled (although I'm partial to S. marmorata myself. ) We had a subforum on the TWI forums specifically dedicated to the discussion of this species, the project, and literature/information on its natural history and captive care. Last summer, however, the forums went down. I was able to get a rudimentary version up and running a few weeks ago, but haven't yet had the time to migrate the old info and discussions into the new format. Assuming I'm able to in the near future, I'll let everyone know and try to make that specific forum public access.

I probably won't be too active in the discussion, but I will definitely stay posted on its progress...so don't take my possible 'post silence' as disinterest.