ozarkhellbender
Member
Is anyone here currently keeping terrestrial caecilians?
I know of a researcher group at the University of Jena (e.g. Dr. Kupfer, author of the article in Paris thread) Germany who keep and breed African terrestrial Caecilians of the genus Herpele and Boulengerula. They feed their animals earth worms. And it seems not difficult to breed them.
This June mines died: they became sick, maybe the earthworm they ate contained something
Geotrypetes seraphini and Herpele squalostoma are imported together. Other importers have brought in some kind of East African caecilian which would seem to be Boulengerula fisheri [not seen], earlier this year.
Herpele and Geotrypetes are imported and sold as the same animal, though they're clearly different, having different colors, annular counts, and "tail" size and shape. The vendor with Boulengerula listed them as Geotrypetes, but Geotrypetes doesn't come from East Africa and isn't "tiger-striped", whereas Boulengerula fisheri fits both
I hope soI hope you are able to acquire some more.
They were collected from wild, and I had collected them almost for a year before, without any problem.Were the earthworms store-bought or collected from the wild?
At first I kept them in coconut fiber too, but they were difficult to feed and they refused all food (earthworms, previously killed small crickets and mealworms). This happened in April 2010. After 2 weeks without eating I decided to place them to a simple setup (plastic box with moist paper towel and some pieces of bark, the towel was changed at least every second day or when it became polluted) and I put them in a drawer to provide darkness. The animals started to eat (only earthworms, that's when I learned what to feed them) and worked well without any problem until they got that sickness in June...I tried Geotrypetes seraphini last year. I kept them at 78 degrees in coco fiber soil mix with bark over the top. They refused all food. isopods , worms, and termites and died after a month.