Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Not on the Amphibian forum very often...but thought I'd vent.

The Petco near me keeps a bunch of amphibians in one long slot of a cage, sectioned off with a partition for each species. The fire belly toads are next too the Pac-Man frogs. Well the fire belly toads have a nack for getting out and into the other enclosures...

...so the last two times I've gone to this Petco, I've walked by the reptile/amphibian section to see one or more fire belly toads in the Pac-Man enclosure...and the Pac-Man frog's head sticking out of the soil, with the legs of a fire-belly toad sticking out. The taod isn't kicking (it's obviously dead). But the Pac-Man isn't swallowing. I assume fire belly toads are toxic and the Pac-Man died before it could even finish the meal.

Is this so?

If so, is that toxin strong enough to harm other animals just by being near the toads?

Now this is what I saw on two seperate visits (weeks apart)...so who knows how many times it's happened. It's a shame. Because of a bad set-up, two animals die and no meal is had. Of course the toads keep on doing it...and maybe from a numbers standpoint they are OK with that. I mean, only one of them has to sacrifice himself, and they get the run of the Pac-Man enclosure.
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One female Eastern Indigo. That's right, just one snake. But she's my dream-snake, so back off man.

Yes firebelly toads are toxic enough to kill a small predator of comparable size. In addition, their toxins can harm other species maintained in the same enclosure. Your observation is unfortunately an all too common one however, especially in the big name pet stores. Very few staff members have any idea what they're doing and more often then not incompatible species are housed together.
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0.1.0 argentine horn
0.0.2 pixie
1.1.0 fire salamanders
0.0.1 axolotl
1.1.0 golden treefrogs
0.0.1 green treefrog
0.1.0 golden gecko
0.1.0 skunk gecko
0.0.1 cali king
0.1.0 sumatran blood python
0.1.0 ball python
0.0.1 corn snake
0.0.2 giant black millipdes
0.0.2 dumpys
0.1.0 Argentine B&W

I saw a similar instance at petcoa while back. They put a bunch of baby whites tree frogs in with green tree frogs. Most of the greens got eaten. Buth the good thing is that they thought that the baby whites were green tree frogs, so I got a bunch of whites tree frogs for $5.00 each!
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1.1.0 Sunburst Veileds (Oscar and Lizzie)
1.1.0 Azureus darts
2.3.0 Mantids
1.0.0 Albino Pacman (Grumpy)
2.0.0 White's Tree Frogs
0.2.0 Cats (Oreo and Doodle)

I know, its sucks. My petco does that here, mix dumpies and firebellies. On the positive side, their enclosures are very clean, and overcrowding doesn't seem to be much of a problem. The pacmans are also kept in individual critter keepers.

It varies from store to store. While I do cringe at the thought of firebellies with dumpies, I've seen much worse at my local petsmart. They kept dumpies and green treefrogs in a really dry cage with a heat lamp! I made a comment to a store worker, but obviously, nobody seemed to care.

I hate to say it, as much as I know frogs are loved by many, and I got my first frogs at 12 years old, but I really wish there was some sort of "liscense" to pay for yearly, or something of that nature to keep aquarium animals. This could help eliminate all the losers out there that like to just get them for curiousity, and later kill the poor, beautiful creatures because they aren't expensive and "not smart" mammalian creatures.

On the bad side to this, it doesn't take much for an adult to purchase one for their kid, and adults will do it too.

People fail to realize, every wild caught green treefrog taken decimates the population in the wild, which is rapidly decreasing. Also, people fail to realize where many animals come from. Those firebellied toads came from remote regions of communist china and North Korea. When the majority of firebellies were taken, China was just opening up for trade with America. Goldfish used to be thousands of dollars and only for royalty, just up to about a hundred years ago. It took many thousands of years to produce all those fancy breeds.

All those beautiful tetras and all come from the remote amazon, where dangerous Fer De lance snakes, pirahnas, jaguars, etc. are found. Now that prices have dropped, nobody appreciates the people that risked their souls to introduce them into herpteculture.

Leopard geckos are native to pakistan and parts of AFGHANISTAN. Nobody fails to realize what it must have taken to acquire these animals way back in the day.

The fate may be soon for dart frogs someday, as the price of them drops constantly.

1.1.1 Mantella betsileo
2.0.0 bombina orientalis
1.0.0 Dendrobates tinctorius "cobalt"
1.0.2 Epipedobates tricolor "santa isabel"
Soon: wc lineage Xenopus laevis.