Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have Robin Graves, my good old green frog that has been in my posession for about three years now. He was an adult when I bought him back then, so I have no way of knowing how old he really is.
Recently, he has developed some whitish centers to his eyes. He can apparently see ok though, because he catches the crickets just fine. But his eyes are almost cloudy-white in the centers. Could it be something like cataracts, or another thing due to old age? I know that this is an old frog by green frog standards.
He is still nice and plump, eating fine, and otherwise healthy. His tank is a 30-g long tank, with several inches of water (changed with a siphon every night) and a land area of flat river rock topped by an inch of often-changed coco fiber and a half-log hide spot.
Has anyone else ever dealt with something like this?
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*~Ginevive~*

I use reptivite supplement every few feedings. He eats mainly crickets and earthworms, with other insects from outdoors in summer, from a pesticide-free area.
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*~Ginevive~*

My four year old wood frog has the same condition. He seems to see just fine. My best guess is that it is nuclear sclerosis which is the medical term for an age-related increase in opaqueness of the eye's lens. It is not a true cataract but as they get older it can decrease their vision. It occurs in older hummans and other mammals (like most notably dogs).
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Stacey

It may also be lipid build up. Do you feed a lot of mice or fish to your frog?
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1.0 Reverse Okeetee Corn snake Fuzzy
1.3.0 leos, Yoda, Geo, Tang, Ginger
1.0 Blue Tongue Skink Indigo (Indy)
0.1.1 frogs Buffy the Cricket Slayer, Butrose Butrose Froggy
1.1.4 firebelly newts Wayne Newton, Isaac Newton, Fig Newton, Juice Newton, Olivia Newton John & Helmut Newton
1.1.0 cats Gus & Mena

The only things he eats are crickets, occasional nightcrawlers, and maybe a spider or two in good weather when I can catch them.
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*~Ginevive~*

Old eyes...what treat is available for people? cataract surgery-definitely not indicated with a frog

my running tree frogs have no cataracts but are so used to being handfed they completely lost their capacity to get food on their own. They instead are expert in begging for food, grab the food from my fingers with their hands, and stuff it down their mouth. Or, in some cases, open their mouths and expect me to put the food in there kind of like a baby bird-perhaps they think catching food on their own is beneath them....include this same behaviour with my tokay gecko, and toad. (my toad is completely clueless how to catch food. I found it half dead when it was small and was raised hand fed, lived like this almost all of its life, and is quite a chubby toad!) Fortunately my eyelash and pac man frogs aren't so badly spoiled.

It sounds like your frog is healthy, and perhaps is not as handicapped as my running tree frogs due to being excessively spoiled.

JadeFox

According to my amphibian medicine and captive husbandry book, cataracts can be caused by disease processes that have infectious, toxic, parasitic, or nutritional etiologies. The author nations that in SOME cases cataracts are associated with age. He also mentions that exposure to excess of sunlight have cause cataracts and other vertebrates.

As you can imagine, the exact cause may never be known for this particular frog. However if these cataracts develop suddenly, or other symptoms manifest in the next couple of weeks, it may be worthwhile to get him checked out.
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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 (Scientific Progress Goes 'Boink', 1991)

My guy saw the vet for them about a year and a half ago and that is what he told me. He has been great ever since. His came on gradually, so I tend to agree with my vet and old age changes.
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Stacey