Schistometopum gregorii

[ozarkhellbender]

I recently added a pair of Schistometopum gregorii from Tanzania to my private collection. Right now, they are quite small, and I have them in a 10 gallon terrarium with about 4 inches of moist coconut coir. I'm hoping to add some pictures soon, but for the moment they are still settling in, and they aren't the most photogenic subjects in the world.

I just thought I'd share my news. Has anyone else out there had experience with this rarely imported species?

Thomas

 

[frogman]

Very cool to hear! I wish you the best of luck with them

 

[crypticmonk]

Can we see some pics??

 

[ozarkhellbender]

Here are some pictures of my Schistometopum gregorii. Sorry for the poor quality. These guys are difficult to photograph because white light repels them. These pictures were taken using red light and my smartphone's camera on the grayscale setting. Enjoy!

 

[Limede]

Any updates? Would like to know how they are doing and if you have breeding plans for them.

 

[ozarkhellbender]

Unfortunately, I have some bad news: both of my specimens perished in the summer of 2014. They were WC animals imported from Tanzania, so the age was unknown, and nothing is known of this species' longevity, so it could be that they died of old age. Both of them were active and eating up until they day they died. Given the chance, I would like to invest in more, but I'm not sure when that would be possible. Sorry I don't have better news for you.

Cheers,

Thomas

 

[Limede]

I'm sorry to hear that. Given the fact that there's so little known information about them, it was at least good that they were feeding properly until they died.
May I ask at what temperature you had them on, how you heated the substrate, what kind of substrate it was and if you know this, what was the pH of the substrate?

I would like to someday own caecilian species, but the information is very scarce.
Any information you can give at all about how you kept them would be great.

 

[ozarkhellbender]

I kept them at room temperature, which was about 75 degrees Fahrenheit. I did not supply any supplemental heat. The substrate was coconut coir, which has a neutral pH. The substrate was approximately 5 inches deep, and I regularly misted the tank to keep the coconut coir damp.

 

[Limede]

I've been researching a bit, and even though it seems like the average temperature of Tanzania is around 23ºC, when I correlated the range of this specie and the temperature where it is found , looks like temperature drops at most 24ºC in July and August, with little rainfall. People speculate it may go through a aestivation period during this time.

Maybe a better temperature for them in the rest of the year would be 26/27ºC.

 

[ozarkhellbender]

While the ambient air temperature may be >24°C, I'm curious as to what the temperature is in the specific microclimates Schistometopum gregorii are found in. I've talked to several other people who have kept caecilians, and most do not use a supplemental heat source.