Dendrobates lamasi

John Skillcorn
Last update: 17 August, 2002

It was indeed fortunate that I was able to obtain three captive bred adults from Holland in April 2001 - three individuals which have turned out to be very prolific.  However, as some site visitors will already know, the true identity of these frogs has caused me a problem and not a little embarrassment.  They had been obtained as D. imitator 'Panguana' and I had no reason to doubt this information.  However, when the first tadpoles were produced I began to suspect that they might not be this species, and the reasons for this are mentioned below.

They very quickly showed themselves to be two males and a single female.  At first I was a little disappointed that it was not the other way round, especially in view of the fact that I had a fair idea that they might produce only two eggs at a time (based on previous experience with D. imitator).  Breeding them in quantity did not, then, seem to be a viable prospect with only a single female.  That aside, they settled down well in their new vivarium.  

This is a tall structure, over three feet high by two feet wide by fifteen inches from back to front (100 x 60 x 40cms).  I had placed inert gravel and water in the bottom, dished so as to allow a puddle of water to show through, with slates on top of the gravel.  This was topped with various tree branches and tropical plants, some of which I had brought back from Costa Rica.  There is coconut fibre on the back wall (up to half the height) while a couple of soft-leaved bromeliads hang down each side.  The bromeliads are a later addition as you will read below.

Heating this vivarium is achieved by an Ultratherm mat underneath the base.  This proved impossible to regulate with an electronic thermostat so it is left on continuously.  The temperature rises to around 24°C (75°F) but on warm days may slightly exceed this limit.  At night the temperature may fall to 21°C.

Lighting is achieved by the use of two small fluorescent tubes, and are switched on at 6.00 in the morning and off at 9.30 at night.  It is appreciated that this is considerably longer than the frogs would experience in their natural habitat.

Humidity is kept very high, with the entire vivarium being sprayed with soft water once or even twice per day.  This is to ensure that there is always water in the leaf axils of the bromeliads, and anyway matches the abundant rainfall in the frogs' natural habitat.

The frogs began feeding immediately on Drosophila and springtails, and it did not take long for the males to start calling.  Their loud, one second trills separated by several more seconds are distinctive and can be heard over a fair distance.  The female seemed to respond to these calls, and soon she and one of the males could be seen hopping around the walls and plants of the vivarium.  The male took the lead while the female followed, often stroking the male whenever she got near enough.  Their movements seemed very jerky and deliberate.

It was not long before I discovered their first clutch of eggs as planting was fairly sparse at that time.  As my previous experience with D. imitator had caused me to suspect, there were only two eggs in the clutch.  Also according to type they were similarly stuck to a vertical surface - in this case the glass side of the vivarium, low down towards the back, underneath a sloping branch.  None of the frogs seemed to show any interest in these eggs at all, so I was worried when they were nearing their full time of incubation (in this case about 14 days) that the larvae might simply slide out of the eggs and down into the substrate to be lost from sight.  I therefore decided to scrape the eggs, complete with their fully formed tadpoles, from the glass surface and into a plastic dish.  This I did with obvious success, as they soon hatched into healthy larvae.

The two larvae were fed on TetraMin flake fish food, and grew rapidly.  They quickly developed iridescent gold upper lips which showed prominently in the dim light of the vivarium, and I could only wonder as to why they were so brightly coloured.  As I remembered, D. imitator tadpoles had not shown this characteristic, and it was at this time that my first suspicions were aroused that these might not be D. imitator.  But why brightly coloured lips?  What advantage could these be to the species?

I quickly discovered that it is the male who picks up and transports the tadpoles.  Clearly then, the female can have no idea where the tadpoles have been placed.  However, I have seen on a number of occasions a male calling and enticing a female into a bromeliad leaf axil where a tadpole is known to be resident, and you will find notes about this below.

Those larvae that I manage to isolate (having been placed in film containers, for example) I rear in transparent plastic cups from the local supermarket.  Into these is placed around 100 mls soft water which is changed twice a day.  The cups are placed into an electric plant propagator which keeps them at around 25°C.  This holds 8 cups with ease but could probably hold upwards of twelve if push came to shove.  The tadpoles receive a single flake of food each day, regardless of their size, and I make an effort to vary the type of flake I give them.  They're different colours and, one might at least be given to think and therefore assume, that they hold different types of nutrient.

In due course, the tadpoles begin to develop colour, and this happens fairly early on in their development.  The patterning develops along with the first hint of hind legs, deepens and then by the time the front legs are showing as bulges, the metallic, yellow-green tracery of the dorsum and blotches on the hind legs are prominent.  The front legs have so far come out without the dreaded spindle-leg.   The froglets are large, being at least half the size of the parent frogs (which are, admittedly, only an inch long anyway), and are capable of feeding on small Drosophila straight away.  However, there seems to be an additional, flourishing supply of indigenous beasties already within the confines of the vivarium.  The frogs' larval development takes 8 weeks while their full development takes a total of two and one half months.

 
These  two photographs show a male Dendrobates lamasi carrying a tadpole.  
The eyes of the larva can clearly be seen.  The tadpole may be carried around like this for over twelve hours if a convenient and acceptable deposition site is not available.  The brightly coloured lips mentioned in the text are not yet developed, but begin to appear after only a few days.  The frog itself is very small, being less than an inch long (2.5cms).

I am probably going to regret writing this in the near future, but....  So far the frogs have proved straightforward to maintain, with no problems having been encountered.  They are active, exclusively arboreal and are good feeders.  Although the colony started with only a single female, there has been no shortage of eggs.  She seemed able to produce clutches of two eggs every five days or so and appeared to favour the attentions of one of the males in preference to the other.

They are very secretive about where they place their eggs, so I am usually forced to leave them to their own devices for this part of their reproduction.  However, the tadpoles can be a bit of a worry because inevitably it is up to the male to carry them to what he considers to be a suitable waterhole.  In nature this is without doubt a bromeliad of some sort.  I say this due to the fact that he is very reluctant to put them into anything that is NOT a bromeliad!  I have placed black, plastic film containers around the vivarium, each with a little water in the bottom and at varying sites and heights.  Although they have been used, it is very clear that they are not preferred and it is common to see a male carrying a tadpole around for over twelve hours, looking for bromeliads.  Moreover, on one occasion they actually spawned inside a film container just above the water line, but the male subsequently moved the hatching larvae to a nearby bromeliad!

In the end, I obtained two bromeliads and hung them in the vivarium.  Within a very short time, the male had used one of them in which to place his tadpole.  I did not see him with another and assumed that this one had got tired of waiting and had wriggled out of range of the male's attentions.

The bromeliads are being grown in square, black-plastic pots designed for the growing of aquatic pond plants, and this can be seen from the photographs above.  They are of the basket type with finely meshed sides and hang from thick, plastic-coated wires half-way down the sides of the vivarium.  The bromeliads are grown in pure Sphagnum moss which so far has caused no problems.  In this way, the plants' root structures are kept well-ventilated and moist without being soggy.  Completely enclosing the bromeliads is a species of Piper brought back from Costa Rica as a large seed.  This rampantly growing plant clearly tolerates the high temperatures and humidity of the Dendrobatid vivarium extremely well.

The two bromeliad plants are now established tadpole nurseries, and one can observe the shadows of the tadpoles through the leaves as they swim around in their own private pools.  I make no attempt to feed these tadpoles, considering that they will obtain nourishment from the insects which seem to often fall into the leaf vases.  Waste products from the adult frogs may also be a contributory factor to their nourishment.  It has to be said, though, that this method of breeding is not ideal.  The froglets resulting from this arrangement are tiny (a third the size) compared with their artificially-fed brethren and take three months to metamorphose rather than two.

Incidentally, tadpoles are very difficult to remove from bromeliads.  This is due to the fact that, as soon as the bromeliad is moved, or indeed touched, the tadpole swims deep down into the leaf axil to a point from where it cannot be extracted safely.  However, I have on several occasions observed the strange behaviour of tadpoles in response to pairs of adults.  These frogs generally sit right at the water level inside the bromeliad, the male calling all the while.  At times his vocal sac is at water level which produces a sound of a slightly higher pitch than normal while no doubt causing ripples to be produced across the water surface.  The shadow of a tadpole already in the leaf vase has been clearly seen through the leaf swimming in a very agitated, eel-like manner around the feet and legs of the adult frogs.  It is quite evident that the tadpoles do not regard this sort of thing as a 'disturbance' in the true sense of the word and react in a very positive manner.

Well, that's the story so far.  I like these frogs, and their tiny, neat appearance is exactly what I look for in these animals.  The fact that they are exclusively arboreal and very vocal adds to their charm, and I am amazed that so few people seem to have developed an interest in them.