In part of my ongoing effort to find more ways to bring critters into our house, we adopted two Dendrobates tinctorius “Azureus” dart frog, commonly referred to as the “blue dart frog” from South America, in late 2012. I was hooked!
These little frogs are part of a frog family known for being poisonous, and in some cases (really only about 4 species) they are used by natives for creating poison darts. This particular species is not considered tremendously poisonous, and they lose their toxicity on a captive diet. Our frogs are originally from the Sipaliwini Savannah Preserve in Suriname, South America. Our particular specimens are captive bred, purchased from Tobias at Dendroterra (an Austin TX based frog breeder – line originating from Patrick Nabors).
Back to the main dart frog page
This page is all about Dendrobates tinctorius “Azureus” dart frogs. I’ve taken lots of interesting photos and gathered data and logs on a variety of topics related to these particular dart frogs that I have embedded and linked to here. There are many photos listed below, but as you scroll down you will find more links to information on the frogs, their vivarium, and breeding.
A few photos of Dendrobates tinctorius “Azureus”.
Regional weather – Sipaliwini Savannah
I’ve been working on a project to document the weather patterns of Sipaliwini so I can compare them to the climate in our vivarium. The project will be updated here as I make progress on the data analysis and collection.
Breeding and egg and tadpole development
I have put together a variety of posts on dart frog breeding and behavior based on this pair of Azureus. Here are a few useful links with brief descriptions:
- I have a pretty extensive post on Dendrobates tinctorius “Azureus” dart frog breeding behavior and tadpole development in this post. This is a fascinating post that contains a time series photo journal of a tadpole developing with daily images over the course of three months.
- I also provided pictures of how to tell a male Azureus dart frog apart from a female Azureus dart frog here. This includes body shape, and toe pad close ups. There are also pictures of the male dart frog calling.
- Here are a few photographs of a recently morphed froglet crawling out of water in a grow out cup for the first time. This froglet has not fully resorbed its tail.
- This was an interesting post on what is often referred to as a “bubble tad“. This is a tadpole that develops an internal gas bubble that often causes the tadpole to invert. In my experience these tadpoles develop normally and I would advocate against culling. I have morphed 2/2 “bubble tads” with no issues. The froglets were no different then their siblings.
- Here’s a video of an in-viv tadpole hunting and consuming a fly that was on the surface of the water. This was really interesting to watch.
Dendrobates tinctorius “Azureus” dart frog vivarium photos
I’ve reworked the vivarium housing my pair of Azureus dart frogs several times. These images are of the current vivarium. They are currently raising their own tadpoles in their viv which now contains a small pool for depositing and grow out. Here are some images of the vivarium.
The pond area of the vivarium is visible in this photo. You can also see how the azureus enjoy climbing. They spend the majority of their time in the upper ledges of the vivarium. There is a series of ledges behind the plants that allow the pair to easily climb from the floor to the upper ledge.
Here are images of plants within the vivarium.
These are time lapsed views of the previous version of the azureus vivarium that illustrate the rate of plant growth of a type of spike moss called “Plana”.
Here are images of Peperomia trinervula. These little plants grow very well in a variety of vivarium conditions and they can tolerate the rough treatment doled out by large tinctorius.
A few more Azureus dart frog photos
