Hello, Frank Indiviglio here. Male Great Crested Newts undergo an amazing change in appearance during the breeding season.  In Part I of this article I introduced the natural history of this most beautiful newt, and discussed how to bring it into breeding condition.  I’ll cover breeding details and raising the larvae here.
Courtship and Egg Deposition
Breeding [...]

Hello, Frank Indiviglio here.  In the late 1980’s I was privileged to breed the now rarely-seen Smoky Jungle Frog, Leptodactylus pentadactylus, a large (8 inch snout-vent length) Latin American native that constructs foam nests on land.  In the wild, rain washes the tadpoles into a nearby pool, where they develop in normal frog fashion…following suit, [...]

Amphibians and fishes are highly susceptible to even minute amounts of foreign chemicals in their habitats. As such, their current population declines should serve as an important “early warning signal”, forecasting problems that will eventually affect other animals and ourselves.
An odd twist to this sensitivity issue among frogs is that an injection of gonadotrophin, a [...]