Anyone ever kept tailed frogs?

[Hecklad]

I find them to be one of the most fascinating North American frogs and would love to own a group some day and potentially breed them (that said I have no clue on whether or not it's legal to catch them in any states they occur in). I am curious if it has been done before and any input is appreciated

 

[otofrog]

I don't think anybody has kept them in captivity but I've read about them. They live in flowing streams so would need a sort of hillstream paludarium with lots of big pebbles to hide under. To breed them you would need to aestivate the adults over winter like you would with fire belly toads and such. The tadpoles have a big sucker similar to plecos and you would probably need to grow biofilm on the rocks for them to graze on (like hillstream loaches and freshwater gobies do)

 

[Hecklad]

That sounds like a super fun setup and would be fairly easy to do. Any idea what their maximum temperatures are? keeping them cold in the winter would be easy, but if they need it cold during summer too that could prove an issue without a chiller.

 

[dendromad]

That sounds like a super fun setup and would be fairly easy to do. Any idea what their maximum temperatures are? keeping them cold in the winter would be easy, but if they need it cold during summer too that could prove an issue without a chiller.

the streams they inhabit are cold mountain streams with snow melt run off so the water would require chilling. Air temperatures in summer where they live can reach in 30c + some days but it would be cooler down by the forest streams they live in.

 

[Hecklad]

Yeah, after doing some more reading it seems like the adults would be fairly easy to keep as they aren't truly dependent on the frigid water or air temps, but raising tadpoles and breeding the adults would be the kicker. Apparently during summer adults can be found up to 300+ meters away from water and can also be found in (relatively) warmer standing pools/ponds.

 

[Thanassi07]

https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4822&context=etd on page 75 it says that A. montanus is level 3 for husbandry and A. truei is level 4 so they were kept at some point, even if it was in a lab. And number 4 is the highest so I don't think it's too easy.