Mick Bajcar
Whilst many members of our group are now breeding their frogs, very little has been seen in the Newsletter on their successes and failures. Hopefully, I might start a trend by giving details of my breeding with D. leucomelas. I first acquired three juvenile D. leucomelas when Hans Zwoferink visited England in September 1990. These were captive bred siblings about two months old. They are the orange and black banded form. They were housed in a well-planted vivarium heated to 26°C by day and simply by a small heat pad at night that allowed the temperature to drop to about 16°C. The frogs were fed copiously with wax-worm larvae, Drosophila, sweepings and occasionally crickets. They have always shown a marked preference for the wax-worm larvae. They grew well and showed no sign of shyness, showing well in the vivarium. Unfortunately, my early records have been lost, but I recall that one frog died in the water dish shortly after I had acquired it. |
The frogs quickly reached their adult size of SV 35mm but were indistinguishable from each other, and showed no sign of breeding behaviour.
A change in my personal circumstances led to a rationalization that necessitated the D. leucomelas being re-housed. They were moved to a larger vivarium, 80 x 60 x 40cm which they shared with five D. auratus and a number of E. tricolor. The vivarium contains five spawning sites at varying heights, though the frogs seldom climb to the higher ones. It is planted with Philodendron, Tradescantia, Ficus pumila and Maranta. It was heated the same way as before. It was purely my circumstances that made me combine D. auratus and D. leucomelas in the same vivarium, as there is a risk of hybridisation.
At an age of about 15 months, I heard the first calling. Contrary to Hesselhaus, the male sat in an exposed spot and called with a loud trill of 7 or 8 seconds. A large, black vocal sac was inflated and the whole frog vibrated. The callings started, rather tentatively, at first light but this built up over a few weeks until he called incessantly. During the same period the other frog started to fatten - I had a pair!
Just before Christmas 1991 I had the first clutch of six eggs in one of the lower spawning sites. These were not fertilised, but the next clutch - some six days later - was. Inevitably not all the eggs were fertilized, but I managed to get two or three fertilized eggs every six days for about three months. During this period the D. auratus were spawning in the same vivarium with no interference from the D. leucomelas. The only problem was, in finding a clutch, knowing from which species it had come. Hybridisation never occurred.
Spawning stopped in February 1992, as suddenly as it had begun. It recommenced in October and again stopped suddenly after about two months. In September 1993 it recommenced with a vengeance but a heater failure in my incubator caused me to lose 66 tadpoles in one night, when their temperature dropped close to freezing.
This year's spawnings started in April and I now have a fair number of tadpoles. In line with my comments in the last Newsletter, I am experimenting with the care of these and will inform you of the results at the earliest opportunity.
The original pair has now been supplemented with a wild caught female and captive bred, unrelated males. Froglets should be available for sale or exchange from mid-August.