Ranitomeya uakarii ‘gold legged’

Ranitomeya uakarii have have only been legally available recently through Understory Enterprises, although in the past the pressure on wild populations due to smuggling is estimated to have been low. Their range is rather large, and they have been found throughout the Amazon basin in southern and central Peru, western Brazil, Colombia, and central Guyana.  They are a more terrestrial species of Ranitomeya, but will utilize vertical space in a terrarium, especially if there are tall broad leafed plants. In my experience they have been an incredibly bold species, not even seeking cover when I have my hands in the tank to do maintenance or check for eggs.

The frogs pictured below are the ‘bronze legged’ type.

And here, a precariously positioned tadpole,

A well-formed clutch of eggs laid on a Costus amazonicus leaf,

I feed tadpoles spirulina for the first 2-3 feedings.  It’s 100% algae that you can buy at most health food stores.  It’s important to feed heavily those first few times as the tadpoles seem to die easily if they don’t get a lot of food right after they swim out of the egg.  The water should be quite green, and it’s best to do a few heavy water changes in correspondence with those feedings.  Once they gorge on algae for a week or two, they will be big enough for pellets.  I use zoomed tadpole pellets but I think there are higher quality ones out there.  I feed them 3-6 pellets 1-2x per week and do 50% water changes when the water looks cloudy or especially dirty.  The water is bottled spring water.  Aged tap might be alright, but I’ve had high mortality with other Ranitomeya tadpoles so now use exclusively spring water for all my tadpoles.

The frogslets can morph out very small, but it seems to depend on the particular clutch.  I have had frogs morph put 2/3 the size of adults, and others that are 1/3 the size and are not even large enough to eat fruit flies, so it’s good to have a producing springtail culture ready.

Resources,
Dendrobates.org