Dendrobates lamasi Some notes on maintenance and breeding. John Skillcorn The animal This is one of the smaller frogs, being less than an inch (2.5 cms) long. Seemingly, its colour is variable, but is likely to consist of some arrangement of yellow and black lines running longitudinally down the body from snout to vent. Some variants have more yellow than others, it being a solid buttercup yellow rather than a metallic orange tinge. The legs are pinkish-grey, each with several large, round spots of black. They are an exceedingly arboreal frog, and rarely come down to ground level. Being active and interactive, males will call off-and-on during the entire day, occasionally into hours of darkness. The call, being a cross between a trill and a buzz, is loud (for such a tiny frog) and lasts for around a second. It will be repeated at thirty-second intervals over an extended period of time, sometimes hours. Housing Because of their arboreal nature, any suitable vivarium needs to be higher than wide. Mine is around three feet tall by two feet wide by sixteen inches from back to front (100 cms x 60 cms x 40 cms). One third of the top is open and covered with fine, nylon mesh, ensuring good ventilation. It has sliding glass doors at the front for easy access and underfloor heating using an Ultratherm heating mat. Temperature is maintained at between 20ºC and 25ºC, depending on the ambient temperature of the surroundings. I no longer use a thermostat but have the low-wattage heater connected all the time. The floor of the vivarium holds inert gravel to a depth of two to three inches (5 to 7.5 cms) with soft water almost up to the surface of the gravel. The heating mat heats this water and the saturated, warmed air that results from this in turn rises and heats the container. Daily heavy misting of the whole contents using warmed, soft water further controls humidity. The vivarium contains several bromeliads of the genus Nidularium, these having soft leaves with smooth edges. They also possess numerous, deep leaf axils that readily hold water - deposition sites for tadpoles. They grow in pure Sphagnum moss held within the plastic baskets designed for pond plants. These bromeliads are now overgrown by a rampant Piper sp. that I brought back as a large seed from Costa Rica and I can now no longer access them. The lighting producing this rapid plant growth consists of two x 100-Watt equivalent fluorescent light bulbs with bayonet fittings (B&Q's own label). These are situated on the outside of the vivarium underneath the wooden canopy, and are lit between 06.00 and 21.30. Feeding With regard to the provision of food for these animals, I must confess that I keep this as simple as possible. Their staple diet is Drosophila fruit flies, but I have to say that their environment does generate a surprising amount of 'natural' food in the form of springtails, worms and fungus gnats. Their Drosophila are always dusted with Nutrobal and so far I have not had any trouble with the dreaded spindle-leg. Breeding My original frogs consisted of two males and one female. From almost the instant they were put into their vivarium they started to breed, and have rarely stopped since. One of the males - identifiable by a large, isolated black spot on the belly - seemed to be the most active in this respect, and continues so to this day, almost a year later. If there is a downside, then I suppose it is the fact that they produce only two eggs at a time. However, I have found that they will produce two eggs every five to seven days. The male looks after the eggs. Not that I've seen a male anywhere near any of the eggs I've found. Nevertheless, since I've often seen males carrying their tadpoles around, I can only assume that they at least remember where their eggs are. The larvae are carried one by one as the male looks for a suitable deposition site. This will be a film canister only as an absolute last resort. They use bromeliads and in their absence will carry a tadpole around for at least twelve hours, sometimes longer. Once a bromeliad becomes available, however, they will make a beeline to it in order to deposit their cargo. Unfortunately, the tadpoles are inextricable from these places, diving deep down at the slightest disturbance. It is alleged that the females will lay eggs in the bromeliad leaf axils as food for tadpoles, and I have seen suspicious behaviour that might suggest this. This activity is documented in my previous article in Newsletter 44, so I will not repeat details here. Rearing Tadpoles I recommend that wherever possible you artificially rear the larvae. They will metamorphose in two months instead of three, and the resulting froglets will be three times the size of parent-reared frogs. The tadpoles are best reared individually in 250 ml plastic beer cups (from supermarkets) placed into something like an electric plant propagator used for germinating seeds. They are each reared in 100 ml of soft water. I feed mine on a good quality flake fish food such as TetraMin Staple, changing the water daily. They are given a large flake of food each day, regardless of their size. At first, some will be left over, while later on the whole flake will be consumed. The flakes are pushed under the water surface to ensure they fall to the bottom of the plastic cup. I now rear only those tadpoles resulting from pairs of eggs I (rarely) happen to find in accessible places, usually on bromeliad leaves. I scrape the eggs off the leaves using a plastic spoon (a plastic medicine spoon is ideal) and place them onto folded, wet kitchen towel (to which they will adhere) which is then stood vertically in the soft water placed in the bottom of a 250 ml plastic drinks cup, covered with cling-film. They are thus held an inch above the waterline. The cup is placed into the electric plant propagator alongside any tadpoles I am rearing. The eggs hatch in about two weeks at around 24ºC, but I usually leave them on the leaves until the tadpoles are almost due to hatch. If a tadpole clearly looks ready to hatch but has not done so, I have no qualms about breaking the egg open to release the animal. This has never proved detrimental to the larva's subsequent wellbeing. Tadpoles will colour up gradually as they grow and before the legs appear, but the first that becomes evident within only days is the bright, Day-Glo yellow upper jaw. Again, my thoughts on this phenomenon are outlined in the above-mentioned article. The tadpoles are very easy to rear, and should present absolutely no problems. So far, spindle leg has failed to rear its ugly head and the young frogs metamorphose at a surprisingly large size. They are able to take Drosophila immediately and continue to grow at a steady rate. Regrettably, I do not know for certain at what age they become mature enough to breed, but I would dare make a guess at between six months and a year. In Conclusion This small frog is well worth keeping and breeding. It still has something to teach all of us; certainly I have not discovered all its secrets. In spite of this it is only a matter of time before its mysteries become more apparent, and the truth of its true identity becomes known. Its ties with D. imitator may prove closer than we realise.