That's strange about the aphids. I believe every one of my frogs loves the ones that get on cabbage, peas or fruit tree leaves. The little tiny black pavement ants are a good source, from what others have said, but avoid anything large or those that sting, such as red or the red and black mound ants. There are so many ant species, it's difficult to be specific, but just about everyone has some form of the so called "pavement ants" that tend to build nests between bricks or sidewalks. You can trap them in a deli-cup with a piece of sugared fruit. Don't put too many in at first, because if the frogs don't eat them, they will burrow around and become pesty for the duration of their lives. Fortunately, what you capture won't breed, but you probably already know that.



I didn't mention that they will also eat baby isopods such as the pill and sow bugs, but not the adults. These are rare here because the country is so dry, but whenever I find any of them, I put them in my tanks, even the adults. They feed on organic matter, don't seem to bother the plants any, and the frogs take care of any population explosion--too well, in fact, to keep them going reliably. You can actually raise them in a container of soil and leaf litter laced with bran cereal.*



Another food source that many dart keepers recommend are termites collected from under decayed wood in the forest. I've never found any, so don't have first hand experience with this.



Good luck. Keep us posted on any successes (or failures) with field food.



*I haven't raised isopods since I was a kid, but my cousin and I used to raise "stables" of the type that doesn't pill up when disturbed. We would hitch them with thread to carts made from the small cardboard match boxes and have races. We lived way off in the boonies, pre-TV days, no electricity, so invented a lot of weird stuff to do. I have no idea how we discovered what to feed them, except the old Post Toasties bran flakes seemed to work.
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Patty

Pahsimeroi, Idaho



D. auratus blue, auratus Ancon Hill, galactonotus orange, galactonotus yellow, fantasticus, reticulatus, imitator, castaneoticus, azureus, pumilio Bastimentos. P. lugubris, vittatus, terribilis mint green, terribilis orange.

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