I have National Aquarium for lugubris and the Electric City Aquarium in Scranton for aurotaenia. Both are recorded on the forum under the common names I used.
American Herping: A Guide to Reptiles and Amphibians in US Zoos
- Thread starter Coelacanth18
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I have National Aquarium for lugubris and the Electric City Aquarium in Scranton for aurotaenia. Both are recorded on the forum under the common names I used.
Typical, me wondering what place has the species and it turns out I'm the one the info is from
At National, lugubris is in the one second from the left, with strawberry and green and black.
Attachments
Before we get into the last of the PDFs, I realized that I forgot to include something in the Dendrobates post - good places to see poison dart frogs in the United States. As it's common for places to hold 6+ species, there's a lot of good places. The place with the most species in the survey was the National Aquarium in Baltimore, which has had at least 13 species on display in the past 5 years. Second was the Dallas World Aquarium with 12. Third (with 10) was the Smithsonian National Zoo, which has glass-fronted breeding labs for several species of poison dart frogs.
Epipedobates
Anthony’s Poison Dart Frog and Phantasmal Poison Dart Frog
Latin: Epipedobates anthonyi and Epipedobates tricolor
Status in US Zoos: Common
The Epipedobates frogs are popular in the private trade, and correspondingly in zoos also. It’s unclear exactly what is in captivity: I’ve been told that all captive tricolor are actually misidentified anthonyi, but I haven’t been able to confirm that claim. Different zoos sign different species; the private trade sells under both Latin names and I’ve seen “Phantasmal” and “Tricolor” used alongside the Latin anthonyi. If anyone knows of an official or academic source on what the situation is, that’d be much appreciated!
Anthony's Poison Dart Frog / Taken at Newport Aquarium by @jayjds2
Ranitomeya
Also called “thumbnail dart frogs”, these are the smallest poison dart frogs held in captivity at less than 1 inch long. Most are from the Amazon Basin. Ten species were found in the survey, none of which were particularly common. The Dallas World Aquarium - mentioned above as having one of the largest collections of poison dart frogs in the US - has the best national collection of Ranitomeya, with around 6 species or so on display.
Mimic Poison Dart Frog (Ranitomeya imitator) - Uncommon
The most common Ranitomeya in the survey, this Peruvian species is named for its survival strategy of mimicking the color and pattern of other Ranitomeya in its range.
With a Dendrobates for size comparison / Taken at Los Angeles Zoo by @Julio C Castro
Blessed Poison Dart Frog (Ranitomeya benedicta) - Uncommon
A vulnerable lowland Peruvian species with a distinctive red head and black robber mask.
Taken at Bronx Zoo by @ThylacineAlive
Rare
Amazonian Poison Dart Frog (R. amazonica)
Red-headed Poison Dart Frog (R. fantastica)
Sira Poison Dart Frog (R.sirensis)
Summers’ Poison Dart Frog (R. summersi)
Brazilian Poison Dart Frog (R. vanzolinii)
Zimmerman’s Poison Dart Frog (R. variabilis)
Reticulated Poison Dart Frog (R. ventrimaculata)
Ranitomeya uakarii
Adelphobates
A genus from the southern Amazon Basin. Two species appeared in the survey, with almost all holdings being from one:
Splashback Poison Dart Frog (A. galactonotus) – Prevalent
Found in the Amazon Basin, these are named for the warm splash of color on their backs.
Taken at National Aquarium by @red river hog
Other species of Adelphobates:
Brazil Nut Poison Dart Frog (A. castaneoticus) – Rare
Ameerega
Status in US Zoos: Rare
Species:
Pleasing Poison Dart Frog (A. bassleri)
Silverstone’s Poison Dart Frog (A. silverstonei)
Three-striped Poison Dart Frog (A. trivittata)
And that concludes poison dart frogs! The next post on Monday will be a similar vein though… convergent evolution, anyone?
Epipedobates
Anthony’s Poison Dart Frog and Phantasmal Poison Dart Frog
Latin: Epipedobates anthonyi and Epipedobates tricolor
Status in US Zoos: Common
The Epipedobates frogs are popular in the private trade, and correspondingly in zoos also. It’s unclear exactly what is in captivity: I’ve been told that all captive tricolor are actually misidentified anthonyi, but I haven’t been able to confirm that claim. Different zoos sign different species; the private trade sells under both Latin names and I’ve seen “Phantasmal” and “Tricolor” used alongside the Latin anthonyi. If anyone knows of an official or academic source on what the situation is, that’d be much appreciated!
Anthony's Poison Dart Frog / Taken at Newport Aquarium by @jayjds2
Ranitomeya
Also called “thumbnail dart frogs”, these are the smallest poison dart frogs held in captivity at less than 1 inch long. Most are from the Amazon Basin. Ten species were found in the survey, none of which were particularly common. The Dallas World Aquarium - mentioned above as having one of the largest collections of poison dart frogs in the US - has the best national collection of Ranitomeya, with around 6 species or so on display.
Mimic Poison Dart Frog (Ranitomeya imitator) - Uncommon
The most common Ranitomeya in the survey, this Peruvian species is named for its survival strategy of mimicking the color and pattern of other Ranitomeya in its range.
With a Dendrobates for size comparison / Taken at Los Angeles Zoo by @Julio C Castro
Blessed Poison Dart Frog (Ranitomeya benedicta) - Uncommon
A vulnerable lowland Peruvian species with a distinctive red head and black robber mask.
Taken at Bronx Zoo by @ThylacineAlive
Rare
Amazonian Poison Dart Frog (R. amazonica)
Red-headed Poison Dart Frog (R. fantastica)
Sira Poison Dart Frog (R.sirensis)
Summers’ Poison Dart Frog (R. summersi)
Brazilian Poison Dart Frog (R. vanzolinii)
Zimmerman’s Poison Dart Frog (R. variabilis)
Reticulated Poison Dart Frog (R. ventrimaculata)
Ranitomeya uakarii
Adelphobates
A genus from the southern Amazon Basin. Two species appeared in the survey, with almost all holdings being from one:
Splashback Poison Dart Frog (A. galactonotus) – Prevalent
Found in the Amazon Basin, these are named for the warm splash of color on their backs.
Taken at National Aquarium by @red river hog
Other species of Adelphobates:
Brazil Nut Poison Dart Frog (A. castaneoticus) – Rare
Ameerega
Status in US Zoos: Rare
Species:
Pleasing Poison Dart Frog (A. bassleri)
Silverstone’s Poison Dart Frog (A. silverstonei)
Three-striped Poison Dart Frog (A. trivittata)
And that concludes poison dart frogs! The next post on Monday will be a similar vein though… convergent evolution, anyone?
Antimony96
Well-Known Member
Which institutions keep Lehmann's?
One possible suggestion. If it's too much like work I completely understand that, but in future entries for the rare species, would it be at all possible to provide a list of what the 1-4 places they came up in the survey were? It wouldn't be the most useful for all the common species, and I don't think anyone needs a list of all the places that came up with, say, Green-and-Black Poison Dart Frogs, but for those species that are in only 1-4 zoos it'd be nice to incorporate a list because I know some of the species that've come up (such as Lehman's PDF) I didn't even realize were found in US zoos, and it'd be nice to see *who* has these rarer herps. If it's too much work to add this though, I completely understand.
I expected someone to ask this eventually
I thought about doing a piece on this at the beginning, but I decided it would probably be overkill that early on so I waited to see if anyone suggested it.I completely understand the request, and in theory it doesn't sound unreasonable. The answer that I settled on before launching this thread is that I'm not going to comprehensively do that, and I have several reasons why.
- As I've said, this survey was not comprehensive; many facilities with large collections are missing. Inevitably though, if I post holding lists people will see them as comprehensive lists - which is not my intention.
- The survey data was done over a 5 year timeframe. Herp collections have a lot of turnover; I will do a post about this at some point (when I have time to do some stats analysis) but it's in the range of 25-40% over 5 years for many places. Therefore, many of my holdings are already outdated and there's few that I have confirmed or rechecked. I don't intend to devote the massive amount of time to doing this I feel would be necessary.
- In a related vein, information about specific holdings will become outdated within a few years. The guide itself - being generalist and focused on species overall - will hopefully not be outdated or useless anytime soon, if ever.
- Inevitably when some people see a holding list, they add in small comments and edits like "X doesn't hold this" or "X has this species too". While in some contexts (like species list threads) these updates are fine, this thread is meant to be a general guide - and so I believe frequent comments like these would be a major distraction from the content.
- A lot of the rarer species are natives, which could potentially be subject to an undercount if a lot of nature centers have them. There's nothing I can do about this, and I don't feel comfortable saying "1 place has native species X" when that could be way off base.
- Finally - as I also said in the beginning - almost all of this information was gathered from public sources, especially ZooChat itself. I don't mind fielding a few requests for more specific information - especially since discussion has been fairly minimal so far - but I can't stress enough that this information is out there for whoever wants more detail. I encourage people to do their own research if they're interested in seeing a particular species.
A caveat: If a particular search for a species or group isn't working for someone - maybe due to confusing names, etc - I can potentially assist with that
Antimony96
Well-Known Member
Was curious about them because, for whatever reason, they're one of the two poison dart frogs in Planet Zoo. Odd choice by Frontier.
Are there any American institutions that keep rinkhals? Can't recall ever seeing them. Maybe under a different name?
There's a few around - a quick search shows that, as I'm sure the thread will once it reaches snake.
They're rare, but yeah there is a couple of places that should currently have them on display.
DAK also keeps this subspecies.
Quick follow up on this before today's post: if I do list a native species - or any species - as Uncommon or Rare that you feel like you've seen in many places like nature centers, museums, small zoos, etc, don't hesitate to mention it. I tried to account for gaps in the data when I could, but there's a very good chance that natives in particular were underrepresented in the survey and we'd all benefit from having a more accurate picture
Now on to today's frog facts.
Family Mantellidae – Mantella Frogs
In a prime example of convergent evolution, the mantellas of Madagascar are brightly colored to warn of their toxicity – just like the poison dart frogs of the Neotropics. They are quite small, at around 1 inch in length. Mantellas are also less common in American zoos: excluding native collections, only 28 zoos and aquaria in the survey – or 22.5% - had mantellas compared to ~75% holding poison dart frogs. About half of surveyed holders had more than one species; the Detroit Zoo had the most species in the survey, with half a dozen on display over the past few years. As far as I could find, all Mantellidae in US zoos are members of the genus Mantella.
Golden Mantella (Mantella auriantaca) – Prevalent to Common
The most common in US zoos; roughly 2/3 of mantella holders have this species. Despite the name, many of these frogs are orange rather than yellow; based on gallery photos, this appears to be true for most of the US population as well. This species is endangered in the wild.
Taken at Smithsonian National Zoo by @Ding Lingwei
Green Mantella (M. viridis) – Prevalent
The only other mantella species around in sizable numbers in US collections. Again, the color-based common name can be a bit misleading; most Green Mantellas (in the US at least) look more lime-green, or just straight up yellow. This species is also endangered in the wild.
Taken at Oakland Zoo by @Coelacanth18
Other species of mantella held in US captive collections:
Uncommon (4-5 holders found):
Brown Mantella (M. betsileo)
Blue-legged Mantella (M. expectada)
Climbing Mantella (M. laevigata)
Rare (1-2 holders found):
Baron’s Mantella (M. baroni)
Bernhard’s Mantella (M. bernhardi)
Painted Mantella (M. madagascariensis)
Beautiful Mantella (M. pulchra)
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The next two posts - today's and another this week - will be shorter than the previous ones; I originally had them combined to standardize post length, but I don't want people to incorrectly assume they're closely related so I've split them.
Family Ceratophryidae – Horned Frogs
Ceratophrys
Commonly called “Pacman frogs”, these South American frogs are very popular in the pet trade due to their comical appearance (round, huge mouth), their relative hardiness, and their voracious reaction to food. Seriously, watch some videos if you haven't already seen them on social media – they will eat anything smaller than them, and will often attempt to eat things larger. The large majority of zoo animals appear to be Argentine Horned Frogs (C. ornata), which also seems to be the most common species in the pet trade.
Species:
Prevalent
Argentine/Ornate Horned Frog (C. ornata)
Rare
Surinam Horned Frog (C. cornuta)
Cranwell’s/Chacoan Horned Frog (C. cranwelli)
Pacific Horned Frog (C. stolzmanni) - not reported at only holder since 2019
Argentine Horned Frog (C. ornata) / Taken at Adventure Aquarium by @TinoPup
Budgett’s Frog (Lepidobatrachus laevis) – Uncommon
Somewhat similar in appearance to the horned frogs, though with smooth skin and no horns. These aquatic frogs are found in the dry Chaco region of Paraguay and Bolivia, where they will spend the dry season inactive and cocooned in dead skin underground until the rains come.
Taken by @Javan Rhino at the Berlin Zoo-Aquarium
Family Ceratophryidae – Horned Frogs
Ceratophrys
Commonly called “Pacman frogs”, these South American frogs are very popular in the pet trade due to their comical appearance (round, huge mouth), their relative hardiness, and their voracious reaction to food. Seriously, watch some videos if you haven't already seen them on social media – they will eat anything smaller than them, and will often attempt to eat things larger. The large majority of zoo animals appear to be Argentine Horned Frogs (C. ornata), which also seems to be the most common species in the pet trade.
Species:
Prevalent
Argentine/Ornate Horned Frog (C. ornata)
Rare
Surinam Horned Frog (C. cornuta)
Cranwell’s/Chacoan Horned Frog (C. cranwelli)
Pacific Horned Frog (C. stolzmanni) - not reported at only holder since 2019
Argentine Horned Frog (C. ornata) / Taken at Adventure Aquarium by @TinoPup
Budgett’s Frog (Lepidobatrachus laevis) – Uncommon
Somewhat similar in appearance to the horned frogs, though with smooth skin and no horns. These aquatic frogs are found in the dry Chaco region of Paraguay and Bolivia, where they will spend the dry season inactive and cocooned in dead skin underground until the rains come.
Taken by @Javan Rhino at the Berlin Zoo-Aquarium
I saw Rinkhals last year at Catoctin Wildlife Preserve, Maryland.
David Peden
Well-Known Member
I know the Dallas Zoo had one last time I was there in early 2020. Not sure if it's still there or not, but they've for sure had them in the past
Another post, then off for the rest of the week! Look out for the next one on Monday, when I'll start covering tree frogs.
Family Pipidae – Clawed Frogs
Named for their fingers that lack webbing, these are also called "tongueless frogs" because... you know what, you can piece that one together. They're not catching flies out of the air with a pink mouth harpoon, I can tell you that much. Found in freshwater ecosystems of the tropics, they are also very comically flat. Aren't frogs fun?
The survey found 6 species from 2 genera.
Pipa – Surinam toads
These South American frogs are infamous for carrying their eggs in honeycombed chambers on their back until the froglets pop out, like a miniature horror film. There are two species present in American collections:
Surinam Toad (P. pipa) – Prevalent
Sabana Surinam Toad (P. parva) – Rare
Taken at Adventure Aquarium (New Jersey) by @red river hog
Xenopus – African clawed frogs
These frogs are a very common model organism in research labs, and are also found in the pet trade; unfortunately, they’ve also become invasive in several parts of the world as a result of this. It is suspected they might be the OG vector of the chytrid fungus currently wrecking amphibian populations across the world. Most individuals are the typical African Clawed Frog (X. laevis) but a handful of places carry other Xenopus species.
Prevalent
African Clawed Frog (X. laevis)
Rare
Lake Oku Clawed Frog (X. longipes)
Mueller’s Clawed Frog (X. muelleri)
Western Clawed Frog (X. tropicalis)
African Clawed Frog (X. laevis) / Taken at Sedgwick County Zoo by @Ituri
Family Pipidae – Clawed Frogs
Named for their fingers that lack webbing, these are also called "tongueless frogs" because... you know what, you can piece that one together. They're not catching flies out of the air with a pink mouth harpoon, I can tell you that much. Found in freshwater ecosystems of the tropics, they are also very comically flat. Aren't frogs fun?
The survey found 6 species from 2 genera.
Pipa – Surinam toads
These South American frogs are infamous for carrying their eggs in honeycombed chambers on their back until the froglets pop out, like a miniature horror film. There are two species present in American collections:
Surinam Toad (P. pipa) – Prevalent
Sabana Surinam Toad (P. parva) – Rare
Taken at Adventure Aquarium (New Jersey) by @red river hog
Xenopus – African clawed frogs
These frogs are a very common model organism in research labs, and are also found in the pet trade; unfortunately, they’ve also become invasive in several parts of the world as a result of this. It is suspected they might be the OG vector of the chytrid fungus currently wrecking amphibian populations across the world. Most individuals are the typical African Clawed Frog (X. laevis) but a handful of places carry other Xenopus species.
Prevalent
African Clawed Frog (X. laevis)
Rare
Lake Oku Clawed Frog (X. longipes)
Mueller’s Clawed Frog (X. muelleri)
Western Clawed Frog (X. tropicalis)
African Clawed Frog (X. laevis) / Taken at Sedgwick County Zoo by @Ituri
Antimony96
Well-Known Member
No Hymenochirus?
I noticed that too, I would have expected them somewhere.
A search of the forums for the genus shows the only American mentions to be at the Bronx Zoo in 2015 and 2019 (the latter saying that they were no longer there [or not on display]).