Cohabitating different species

[Craiga 01453]

I did not want to sound as if I thought the dart frog keepers or the users of the other forum were dummies, quite contrary. During my research I was talking to many keepers and breeders here in Germany and they gave me competent and really valuable advice. I am not active on the dendroboard, but I suppose it is the same, especially if there are so many experienced keepers and researchers around there. What I wanted to say was that (nearly) everybody would automatically reject the idea without a real reason. The exception was the curator for Reptiles and Amphibians of the University of Manchester (GB). I met him during a conference last year and talked about my brainstorm and while he didn’t know if it might be possible he encouraged me to at least give it a try.

The notion of not mixing the species to keep the gene pool clear is something I can only agree to, this is something we snake keepers should try to do more often ourselves.



Thanks for the advice, I am not sure if they are really in breeding mode, but I heard the male call out several times…



Ahh, you know, there is not much room in front of the enclosure, since it is located in a passage to another room. On the other hand, I am sitting in my office long enough each day, standing and watching them is good for my back.



Thanks Craig, I really appreciate it. It is always a pleasure to argue with you and I think we can only advance our hobby if we try to educate each other, share our knowledge and discuss new or ongoing projects. It is always possible to suffer from tunnel vision, so sometimes it needs somebody else to point out any flaws in your concept.


For this project, I was really weighing pros and cons for more than a year, I was pretty certain that it might work, but there was still a risk involved. In my point of view, if you keep an animal it is your responsibility to do it the best way (for the animal) possible, so I was unsure if it was justifiable to put the frog(s) at risk. But so far I think it is beneficial for both snakes and frogs. Since it has worked out (so far) I try to spread the information in different forums to give a new impulse and help educate other keepers. Not necessarily to advocate mixing species to everyone, but simply to show that it is possible under the right circumstances.

Hahahahaha,yes it is.

And you're absolutely right about tunnel vision. I've probably slipped in that direction a bit myself. You know, the whole "if it ain't broke..." deal. But I'd be doing myself and my animals a disservice to think things can't be improved.
You've been influential in expanding my horizons. There's always new information available and studies are ongoing. So I'll be happy to argue with you again soon, hahaha.