P
paris
Guest
well they did it! and with out too much to get in their way..so here is a running photo documentary of the whole thing....so far....
2 days ago the other female(not lefty) allowed a male to grab her and didnt resist him. they stuck together for about 2 days and ant attempt to grab her by either myself or another male would result in the amplexing male flipping his back foot to push away or even attempting to BITE me!!(a funny site)
here is a pic of the females vent, it was more swollen than before so i knew with the combination of the males enthusiasm and this that something was soon to come. (they had been in amplexus for about a day at this time)
here is a picture of the male trying to bite me. the mouth has soo many loose layers that the billowy interior could actually prolapse from the mouth! note that even though these frogs dont have tounges they do have a structure like it.
after 2 days the females skin had changed also -its was smoother and puffy, as you can see in this pic.(but not sticky as i was lead to believe)
they started rolling-having outsplayed feet together in sort of a barrel roll that ended up as a headstand with some hopping.
i can say it is a myth that they need deep water to breed. they never used more than 1/2 of the tanks height to do all their acrobatics.
once on her head the female would shake-hopper like- and eject 1-5 eggs. this picture is out of focus but is one of the action ones that shows the eggs comming out.
i was able to finally get a shot of the egg deposition tube
once the eggs were released and shaken down her flexed back and fertilised the male would press himself to the female to hold them to the swollen skin untill they stuck well. i was suprised that the semen wasnt visible during release-i expected it to be white and cloudy, but i saw no such evidence of it-i was worried they werent fertilised-but i can currently (8 hrs later) see cleaves in the eggs.
the head stand hopping served to attach eggs down the curved back further and further from the origin. they were first stuck to the rear area and once that area was saturated with eggs the later ones would slide off the previous ones and settle further up the back. not only does pressing bodies together help to stick the eggs to the back the male also takes his back feet and presses the eggs to the females shoulder area which his body cannot press to her.
this whole process took about 3 hours
several times the female came up for air-but only once did the male take air
after they were done the female tried to tell the male she was done buy doing the usual thumping to avoid amplexus. she lay on the bottom thumping, flattening out her body so that when he gave the signal he wanted air she resisted his bodily encouragement and he finally gave up and let go of her to get air.
and then VOILA! this is what i got
about 14 eggs were lost to the bottom during breeding and the male attempted to reamplex the female-i was worried she would loose more eggs off her back avoiding him. i took her and placed her in a bucket (where she is now and very calm) and also pressed the loose eggs to her-all but 1 apparently have attached to her. i am not sure how well they will do or if they are all fertilised (since a few were released after the male had sprayed and rolled) but i am told trying to raise them apart from the female doesnt produce good results. i will keep the 1 left under observation to see how far it goes.
2 days ago the other female(not lefty) allowed a male to grab her and didnt resist him. they stuck together for about 2 days and ant attempt to grab her by either myself or another male would result in the amplexing male flipping his back foot to push away or even attempting to BITE me!!(a funny site)
here is a pic of the females vent, it was more swollen than before so i knew with the combination of the males enthusiasm and this that something was soon to come. (they had been in amplexus for about a day at this time)
here is a picture of the male trying to bite me. the mouth has soo many loose layers that the billowy interior could actually prolapse from the mouth! note that even though these frogs dont have tounges they do have a structure like it.
after 2 days the females skin had changed also -its was smoother and puffy, as you can see in this pic.(but not sticky as i was lead to believe)
they started rolling-having outsplayed feet together in sort of a barrel roll that ended up as a headstand with some hopping.
i can say it is a myth that they need deep water to breed. they never used more than 1/2 of the tanks height to do all their acrobatics.
once on her head the female would shake-hopper like- and eject 1-5 eggs. this picture is out of focus but is one of the action ones that shows the eggs comming out.
i was able to finally get a shot of the egg deposition tube
once the eggs were released and shaken down her flexed back and fertilised the male would press himself to the female to hold them to the swollen skin untill they stuck well. i was suprised that the semen wasnt visible during release-i expected it to be white and cloudy, but i saw no such evidence of it-i was worried they werent fertilised-but i can currently (8 hrs later) see cleaves in the eggs.
the head stand hopping served to attach eggs down the curved back further and further from the origin. they were first stuck to the rear area and once that area was saturated with eggs the later ones would slide off the previous ones and settle further up the back. not only does pressing bodies together help to stick the eggs to the back the male also takes his back feet and presses the eggs to the females shoulder area which his body cannot press to her.
this whole process took about 3 hours
several times the female came up for air-but only once did the male take air
after they were done the female tried to tell the male she was done buy doing the usual thumping to avoid amplexus. she lay on the bottom thumping, flattening out her body so that when he gave the signal he wanted air she resisted his bodily encouragement and he finally gave up and let go of her to get air.
and then VOILA! this is what i got
about 14 eggs were lost to the bottom during breeding and the male attempted to reamplex the female-i was worried she would loose more eggs off her back avoiding him. i took her and placed her in a bucket (where she is now and very calm) and also pressed the loose eggs to her-all but 1 apparently have attached to her. i am not sure how well they will do or if they are all fertilised (since a few were released after the male had sprayed and rolled) but i am told trying to raise them apart from the female doesnt produce good results. i will keep the 1 left under observation to see how far it goes.
