H. tokyoensis breeding center

[Tim Johnson]

Today I took a trip outside of Tokyo to visit a privately run breeding center for H.tokyoensis (probably the only one in existence). Nobody actually lives here, though it's quite a beautiful house. The ground floor is used for raising larvae from eggs and the upper floor to host guests and for meetings. (I plan on spending a few nights there myself in the coming months ) The water for the house and ponds is piped from a mountain stream. It was quite impressive, to say the least!

Thats amazing, i never knew anything like that existed.
Thanks for sharing Tim

[Tim Johnson]

The pleasure's all mine, Mark. Any excuse to get out of Tokyo! And a perfect time too as the cherry blossoms were in full bloom -- and there were plenty of them to see, This location was about 2 hours north of Tokyo by local train and car.

[Tim Johnson]

There were plenty of Japanese brown frog (Rana japonica) eggs and tadpoles to be seen in the flooded rice paddies:

[Tim Johnson]

I should add that when I said it's probably the only one in existence, I didn't mean to suggest there are not others who breed H.tokyoensis privately for captive propagation purposes -- just that there's no other dedicated center for this purpose that I'm aware of. Also, I should point out that the level of breeding technique I saw there is not so advanced and the egg sacs there were actually collected from the wild, though it's a noble effort and will hopefully improve with the passage of time.