Spindle leg
Lars Österdahl
Swedish Dendrobates Society
Email: lars.osterdahl@stockholm.mail.telia.com
Last update: 17 August, 2002
In April 1997 I became a member of the Swedish Dendrobatid Society, and when I exposed my status as a rookie (I had only bred D. auratus) by asking what ‘spindle legs’ looked like, my fellow board members decided I needed a lesson. I was given two clutches of D. leucomelas eggs that were from parents that had given a very high percentage of spindle legs in their offspring.
I decided to treat these eggs exactly like those of auratus. The two clutches consisted of 7 and 5 eggs respectively, the first group ‘A’ having tails (Gosner stage ~ 18), the second had no visual sign of development. I left them in their Petri dishes until they hatched, with the dishes kept in shallow plastic boxes with lids to maintain a humid atmosphere.
After 8 days the first group began to hatch, at which point the tadpoles were moved to individual glass jars with 2cm tap water. On this same day we left for Gotland, an island in the Baltic. This was a journey that was to take 14 hours, during which time the temperature in my ‘frog box’ fell to only +10°C. However, there was no visible effect on the tadpoles.
On day 12 all eggs in group A had hatched. The tadpoles were moved to glass jars and the water level was increased to 25mm with well-water. In contrast to the tap-water in Stockholm, which is fairly soft, the well on Gotland produced water with a high Calcium content.
Group B started to hatch on day 15. As the tadpoles grew bigger the water level was increased to 12 cm.
On the 65th day two A-groupers’ front legs appeared. The others followed successively until day 95 when the last two metamorphosed. None of the 12 small frogs had abnormal legs.
Notes on the way I treat
tadpoles
Cannibalistic tadpoles are either kept
solitarily or in tanks with a large water volume. For solitary
breeding I use ½-litre wide-mouth glass jars. I do not change water as
often as suggested by most literature. This is left until such time as
when too much debris has collected. I then siphon this debris out and
top-up with fresh water. If the water takes on an opaque or milky colour
(meaning too much infusoria, and consequent oxygen depletion) I perform an
almost total water change.
The food used in the case described here was small pieces of earthworm, given every second day. No vitamins, Spirulina, or fish food were given. I have Daphnia in the jars, partly as an indicator of water quality and partly as a source of food. Also, the algal growth on the sides and bottom of the jar is a food source used by the tadpoles.
Read Spindle Leg 1
Read Spindle Leg 3
Read Spindle Leg 4