Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi all,

Three years ago I bought my first treefrogs - Hyla cinerea, savignyi and arborea.
Three months later one of the arborea died. It developed a lump on its bottom that seemed (maybe?!) like a piece of intestine popped out (a "prolapse" a friend suggested). It began as a small red ball and then turned clear. While I was researching a local vet who knows something about herps (mission impossible here), it died - a few days later.
All my other frogs are fine.

So I've bought some some more arborea. Same thing happened to one of them, three months after buying it. The jelly-like mass has turned clear again. The animal's sides look slightly sucked in. It does move about.

This is devastating - what causes this?!
Am I feeding too much, too little or the wrong things (crickets mostly, occasional waxxie, monthly vitamin dusting)?
Is the lighting wrong?
Are they too cold / hot?
Why just one? Why at the same stage of ownership, same time of year?
Can the animal be saved?

HELP!!!

For right now get the animal onto very clean wet papertowels until someone with more experience than me can answer.
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Peter: It's OK, I'll handle it. I read a book about something like this.
Brian: Are you sure it was a book? Are you sure it wasn't NOTHING?

were those species housed together?

Some of the things that can cause a prolapse is a large bowel movement usually associated with the exoskeleton of invertebrate foods. Make sure you're not feeding them crickets that are too large. Monthly vitamin dusting is not enough. It should be done at least once a week. I don't know what the source of your tree frogs are, but they should be tested for parasites. Usually tree frogs that are wild caught and shipped around the country are loaded with parasites that can cause a prolapse as well.
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...the oldest task in human history: to live on a piece of land without spoiling it."
Aldo Leopold (1938)

"Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us."
Calvin and Hobbes