Azureus posture question

[GregF]

I have a male azureus exhibiting a posture that I haven't seen before. The center frog, in the photo, standing up very tall on all fours. Can anyone speculate as to what this means?

AFAIK, no conflict, aggression, nothing exciting going on, no flies crawling around. Temps about 78F and humidity about 80%.

TIA

[JoshK]

There are many forms of aggression, some of which can be subtle. Philsuma has in interesting thread on aggression, but I can't find it. Maybe he will remember what it was called and chime in. I'm not saying it is aggression, and I am almost certain I have seen this in my tincs, but it is certainly a possibility. How old are they and are they breeding?

[Philsuma]

That frog is posturing for dominance. I have Azureus that do that and it's natural.

The only time it becomes a problem is if the viv is too small - not enough hides, sight barriers ect and then stress effects feeding and frogs start losing mass and health declines.

1.1 is actually the best ratio for Azureus, IMO.

Agonistic behaviour in dart frogs.

[GregF]

Interesting. These frogs are about 1 year OOW, and not quite sexually mature. Although I believe that they are female (left), male (center), and the right frog is unknown. Frog on the right was a runt, and has always been much smaller for being about the same age. I just can't tell the sex yet.

I keep the small frog in with the other two because "she" appears to do better with them. When I move her to her own viv, she loses interest in eating, and just stares through the glass at the others. In this photo, I had (very) recently moved her back in, so I'm wondering if that explains a "dominance" stance.

Oddly, when I move the runt back in with the larger frogs, she's active, eats plenty, gets fat, etc. And while I'm certainly no expert, I've spent a long time watching them, and haven't noticed any form of aggression...even subtle. They mostly sit together, back-to-back, largely ignoring each other.

[Philsuma]

If you observe them all eating together without problems and all three keep weight on and the vivarium is large and well planted....no reason not to try to keep the three together.

I used to keep 2.2 and the females would wrestle and occasionally the loser would shoot across the viv and hide, but they all ate well and were large. The group even produced eggs and transported in the viv ect.

but

when I transfered 1.1 of them to a friend.....the breeding skyrocketed. A single pair works so much better.

[GregF]

Philsuma...can you tell me if this posturing is unique to males, or do the females do it, too?

[Philsuma]

Originally Posted by GregF

Philsuma...can you tell me if this posturing is unique to males, or do the females do it, too?

Hard to say which sex does it....or if it is exclusive to one sex.....

Tinc females are more aggressive than the males and then you have Pumilio and thumbnail species that have males to be more aggressive than females....

Just realize that it's potentially stressful and debilitating behaviour and watch carefully and take action accordingly.

[GregF]

Understood. The reason I ask is that I just realized that one of my "female" cobalts is actually a male. We'll call him "ambiguously male", as he has small toepads...

Anyhow, I finally put "her" in with a proven pair. "She" stood up really tall like that. And then the established male wrestled quite aggressively with "her". After the misidentified frog retreated, the assertive male started calling and putting on quite a show.

While he was busy, the female successfully courted the new frog, and they ducked into the coco-hut.

It was almost surreal...this happened over the course of about 10 minutes. She must have been reallllly ready to lay.

Anyhow. I guess I have an extra male now. Better fix my sig.