Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i have read that some people feed dart frogs ants, but everytime i try to feed them to mine they spit them out. ive got some tincs and azureus that will not eat them, i havent tried with the pumilios yet, is it the frogs or the ants?

It's the ants. Keep trying different species of ants until you find one the frogs will eat.
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Josh Willard
www.joshsfrogs.com

None of my frogs will eat them, either--not even the mellow little so-called black "pavement" ants. I can understand why they wouldn't like the mound ants or the red ants (Formiciinae) both of which sting and are no doubt pretty spicy, but considering tropical ants are supposed to be one of the basic sources of some of the toxins darts develop in the wild, it's strange that they would eschew our temperate zone fellows. There are 292 genera and over 8,800 ant species, however--so there's a lot of diveristy there. I've also read some posts where people do feed ants to darts, but so far, none has given the exact species they fed successfully.

As an aside, I kept a desert horned lizard that someone captured and presented to me. I had to keep it for a few months until I could release it back in the original spot where it was captured. Ants are the main diet of horned lizards. It ate only one particular speci of mound ant that fortunately abounds on my ranch, but refused to have anything to do with any of the others. In the SW, horned lizards eat only harvester ants. (I wouldn't try either of these with frogs, as they are predacious and might just attack the frogs.) The point, if I haven't already lost any point I had, is perhaps only certain temperate zone ants are appealing to dart frogs, and no one seems to know exactly which ones they are.
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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
4 D. reticulatus
4 D. castaneoticus
2 D. azureus
4 P vittatus

I've always thought it would be fun to raise some south american ant species... but that might just mean I'd have to raise different species for different localities of darts. Crickets might just be the best after all

Yes, one might have a few problems culturing tropical ants. I wonder how the Department of Agriculture would like it?
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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
4 D. reticulatus
4 D. castaneoticus
2 D. azureus
4 P vittatus