why arent Mantellas more popular?

[rattler_mt]

i had to make the 8 hour round trip drive to sell my small family of Degus yesterday and i stopped by one of my favorite petstores. they had exactly 3 Mantellas left for sale. one M. betsileo which was much prettier than pics i have seen on the net and 2 M. laevigata one of which was skinny. they were on clearance for $20 apiece so i bought them since i figured the smaller one of the M. laevigata was skinny cause they were feeding crickets to large for him to eat. other than the one being skinny they look to be in excellent health. they all pigged out on fruitflys this morning which, the skinny one being a real hog, which makes me think i have the right idea about him. they are in a small holding cage at the moment and will go into a 10 gallon before long. they werent the M. madagascariensis, M. expectata or M. cowanii i was really hoping to find but they are a start and with 10 gallons comfortably holding a small group they are a good sized frog to fit in with our smaller house and i will get the others at some point.

so why arent these guys more popular? i know the dart frog hobby in general from the attitudes captive bred individuals are pushed heavily which is great but all CB animals somewhere down the line started as WC. plus it appears these guys will be just as endangered as any of the darts in another 5 years. they are smaller than most darts but not any different than the thumbnails.

[Alfy111]

That always crossed my mine. I mean they look just as nice as darts and they are at a fraction of the cost! I saw a painted mantella in petco once for 30 bucks... I was going to get it, but that was a few years ago and I didnt really know to much about keeping tropical frogs back then. But if I saw that now.. I would definitely buy it. But thats a really good question...

[EDs Fly Meat]

I wish I knew the answer to that one too. Frogs in general are tricky to care for for some people. I want to slap the person who invented that stupid "surf frogs" set up. There are a few reasons that I can think of.

Mantellas have huge egg production numbers, like a 100 or so per clutch, so unlike dart frogs, it is possible to have a few hundred froglets in a short amount of time. With so many frogs available the price of them has to go down so people can move them.

I still baffles me as to why we need to export Mantellas today. There are some really talented Mantella breeders in Europe and the States (Devin Edmonds, Ed Parker to name a few) Madagasgar is one rainforest depleted country. So while I am glad that these animals are available to the US. Do they need to be? Mantella numbers in the wild are still high, and the trade in them is cheap. Sad but true. Obviously when imported to many pet stores employees have limited knowledge regarding how to keep these amazing frogs. As a fruit fly vendor, I am still amazed at how many new people enter the hobby insisting on feeding their frogs crickets. Are crickets important? Yes very much so, but not for every feeding. Fruit flies are not hard to find if you look around, but the crappy examples that are readily available at Petco and Petsmart are determined to be the norm. They look like junk, and turn people off to working with them.

Mantellas have a bad rap because they are temperature sensitive frogs. Unlike dart frogs, Mantellas are high elevation species of frogs. They like it cooler, much cooler than dart frogs in general. 75F is the maximum temperature that M. aurantiaca can safely handle. Mark Stanizewski (sp?) has reported being in Mantella habitat where the temp was 7C. Cold indeed! I was told as a newbie all the time in pet stores to treat Mantellas like dart frogs. So after a few days at 78-82F the frogs have a bad outcome. A story I'm sure has been repeated many times. I think that this is one reason why Mantellas have a label as being a difficult frog to keep. Which is simply not true! Plus, bland orange frogs (like golden mantellas) that are hard to tell apart in a group can be frustrating/dissatisfying for keepers.

But the truth is these are easy to keep and very rewarding frogs. I love my golden Mantellas.

Dave

[rattler_mt]

the temperature area is one place where Mantellas should really shine over Darts in my house. i like growing Nepenthes, especially highlands plus we like to sleep on the cool side so our house almost never reaches above 75 degrees during the day. 60 degree nights are the norm, 50-55 isnt uncommon. to help out my Darts during the day i have them sitting on the shelf directly above where most of my Highland Neps are so the tank gets bottom heat from the flourecent lights i use. it keeps the tanks at about the right temp for the darts.

i am hoping to put together my own bloodlines of several of the Mantella species from imports. CB doesnt seem to be too common here in the states with the exception of Goldens which i plan on getting some CB from Rich at Insular Exotics next time they are availible. so all in all i am excited to finally start working with the genus.

[Ed]

Ahh,
the old cricket vs fly debate.....


snip "They like it cooler, much cooler than dart frogs in general. 75F is the maximum temperature that M. aurantiaca can safely handle. Mark Stanizewski (sp?) has reported being in Mantella habitat where the temp was 7C. Cold indeed!"

I have kept them (M. aurantiaca) get as cold as 3.3 C with no ill effects. I have also kept them as warm as 26 C for several weeks with no problems but over 26 C I did see signs of heat stress. One of the items that is often overlooked is how these temperatures are reached in these animals. If the temperature rapidly increases over 75 F and the frogs are acclimated to 68-72 F then yes you will see stress/mortality in these frogs. If the change occurs over a period of weeks to a month or more then the frogs can take it a little warmer (in my case 79 F). The same goes with lower temperatures. There are critical upper and lower temperatures but these are often increased or depressed depending on the temperature at which the animal is acclimated and how rapidly the temperature changes.

Ed

[trow]

I have been keeping and breeding mantellas for about 9 years the reason I think they are not as popular Is alot are drab and not as appealing to the comercial market.They are cheap and despensable in alot of importers eyes.Ed is right about the temp issue yes they are a little bit more sensitive than PA but like he said if it is done gradually they can take 78 plus degrees for limited amounts of time actually mine breed better with temp flucuations it is natural another issue is food.My mantellas out eat my PA by far they need alot of variety.I dont care what anyone says termites help them out alot when I get wild caught the first thing they eat is T-mites it can bring them back almost from death then I change it up fruit flys,field sweepings,baby spiders,etc.Also cowanii are not beginner frogs they are really heat intolerant nothing above 75 they will die real quick with elevated temps so if you do get some which you never know you may make sure you have the right setup first no impulse buying with them they are way to delicate WC. Right know I am feeding about 62 Milo tads and they are from one group?

[rattler_mt]

thanks for the info and i will definatly keep your advise about M. cowanii inmind. may i ask what species you are keeping and breeding? winters are fairly long and harsh up here which limits food variety for 5 months out of the year but i will have fruitfly, springtail, isopod and hopefully termite cultures up and going in the next few months which hopefully will be enough variety to get me through the winters.

[trow]

laevigata,bernhardi,haraldmeieri,nigricans,milotym panum(green,red,yellow) aurantiaca(rubra).That is about all as far as mantellas go hopefully you will have enough food also I cannot stress it enough try and get larger groups.
later

[rattler_mt]

yes i will be getting larger groups. i got these cause i could see that for the most part they were quite healthy, they were the last 3 mantellas that the pet store had, if they had more i would have purchased them. M. viridis is about the only species i am seeing on any dealers lists that were recommended to me at the moment. i am not terribly interested in M. viridis, atleast not interested enough to dump $200 on getting a decent sized group.

if you ever have CB laevigata availible i would be extreamly interested in purchasing CB individuals in the future.

[EDs Fly Meat]

I hear what you are saying about temp acclimation, and it is true. But how many beginner hobbyists are going to do this? Very few, save the saavy ones who have done their homework. But the real question was why are mantellas not as popular? Someone said it earlier, they don't have the pretty colors the others do. Ergo, the lack of Colothesus in the hobby as well.

Anyone who has some CB M. madagasgarensis can PM me anytime.

Dave