Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Welcome to kingsnake.com's message board system. Here you may share and discuss information with others about your favorite reptile and amphibian related topics such as care and feeding, caging requirements, permits and licenses, and more. Launched in 1997, the kingsnake.com message board system is one of the oldest and largest systems on the internet.

Click for 65% off Shipping with Reptiles 2 You
Click here to visit Classifieds

Amazons mixed with dart frogs?

loconorc Jul 14, 2007 10:38 PM

I have read the new article in the September 07 REPTILES magazine, and there is a great article on a naturalistic setup. It has all the things you would expect in a dart frog vivarium, but it also had a rough green snake in it. I know they are mainly insect eaters. The enclosure was 540 gallons, had a pond, stream, waterfall, small ficus, small fish, etc. If I were to do this myself, would an ATB be acceptable as an inhabitant? Would they chow down on any dart frogs, tree frogs, or lizards in it? From my limited tree boa knowledge, ATB's are normally bird eaters. (if thats wrong tell me!) So would they ignore the little frogs, or would I lose several 100 dollar frogs? If they are sufficiently fed, kept with hides, and plenty of space would it be a problem? In the very far off eventuality I own my own house, I would like a large, naturalistic rainforest viviarium as a showpeice in the living room. I would LOVE to replace a boa with day geckos, rhacs, or some other peaceful inhabitant, but just for accuracy, I would like to keep darts with animals and plants native to their region. Or at least the same region with similar needs. Of course all would be CB, quarentied, and vet checked, and before attempting any species mixing, I would have a few years experience with all species i ndividually. Seems I already got that down with neon tetras! :D

Sorry for the long post, but this is one of my herp dreams I've always wanted to try! I hope my post wasnt too confusing! lol

Replies (1)

Matt Harris Aug 23, 2007 11:09 AM

I would caution against it. While ATBs may be able to discern between an edible tree frog and PDFs, there's always the risk that they won't. Are they adults or neonates? Neonates often only feed on frogs and lizards. I recently received 4 neonate Corallus ruschenbergerii from Costa Rica, and only 1 of the 4 voluntarily ate pinky mice. The other 3 had to be started on small frogs (green and wood frogs).

I have seen some zoos do multi-species displays with PDFs, eyelash vipers and Emerald tree boas, but haven't seen an ATBs in this type of display.

MH

Site Tools