Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello all. I've had my dart frogs (3 azureus, 2 leucomelas)now for about 5 months and they seem to be doing well. I house them each seperatley in small, planted 2.5 gal mini tanks and feed them heavily on an alternating diet of termites and rep/cal dusted ff's.

I've had two larger vivariums set up for them for over year that are doing well..the problems of climate control, lighting,planting etc have been worked out, etc. I want to put the frogs in the new tanks in another month or so as they are outgrowing the smaller tanks.

But before I do, I want to make sure I can safely use bromeliads that have a slightly spiny or serrated edge. Has anyone known these plants to hurt the frogs or are they resilient?

If possible, I'd like to hear from people who've personally had bad experiences or no problems with them. I can quite easily cut most of these spines off.

I may as well mention that as an experiment I kept a tiny "greenhouse" frog in one of these vivaria for several months with these same spiny bromeliads. There were no problems at all...the frog was fine, found plenty of places to hide. It *was* however, harder for me to get my hand around their sharp edges to do maintenance, etc.

I would postulate that these spiny bromeliads rarely hurt the frogs...and may actually serve as a fortified sanctuary in the wild, detering larger predators from entering the bromeliad cup.

I'm sure others have seen documentaries where desert lizards,birds and other animals live amongst spiny or thorny plants and somehow manage to take advantage of the defense offered there and, somehow (instinct or animal smarts), resist being hurt by the same plants.

Dendros can indeed live with these types of bromeliads. Chances are very slim. However, in the animal husbandry realm there is one rule to follow...if there is the slightest of chances, why chance it?

Good point... that's exactly what I was thinking. I'll probably swap these plant out as I have the time and I'd rather not have to worry about it.

I'll probably go with a mostly Guzmania setup as these plants have no serrated edges, more "grasslike" and easily available. But these spiny bromeliads I have have a very deep cup..their like water towers....each one holds about 9 inches of water!

Anyway, I was still wondering if anyone had any personal experiences with frogs being hurt by plants or other terraium "furniture".

I had a whites tree frog that was constantly scratching itself on a spiney brom. i dont remember what kind it was though. anyway the frog didnt seem to mind the scratches it was just everytime i would look in to see it there would be little white scratch marks. no blood or anything Andit chose to hide in that brom over all the others so maybe it felt safer with the spines?

I've worried about "apiny" bromeliads, too. They will sure scrape my thin old lady skin when I attack a leaf the wrong way. But when you order them, there is no particular information on whether they are spiny or not. Some Neoregalias are, some aren't, etc. My darts seem to be more cleaver than I am about getting ripped up by them, because so far, (5 years into the hobby) with over 40 darts and such, none has seemed to be affected by spiny bromes, including some viscous Crypthanthus. They must live with some spiny plants in the wild, and simply know how to handle them to avoid punctures.
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Patty
Pahsimeroi, Idaho

4 D. auratus blue
5 D. galactonotus pumpkin orange splash back
5 D. imitator
6 D. leucomelas
4 D. pumilio Bastimentos
4 D. fantasticus
4 P. terribilis (new froglets)

Considering that this plant does not occur where your whites occurs, and that the whites is a massive frog, it's no wonder that the plant scratched him.

Spiny broms do not injure dart frogs, and you do not need to worry about it.

John Gibeau
www.tincs.com