bullcowman
New member
This happened a few weeks ago, and has been repeated since then.
Well I was watching my tree frogs(h. versicolor) with the top off the cage. My favorite ch baby(his name is leaf) that i keep with the 6 adults i have( i keep the rest in seperate terariums), jumped onto the ledge.
Next to the cage, at about the same level is an aquarium that contained about 20 green frog tads(i think, could be leopards) that i had raised from eggs, to feed a n. water snake that i had released earlier because of its unchanging temprament.
Well anyway Leaf (hes only ~1.2" long and the tads were around the same length) begins eyeballing them, and sure enough he leaps and attempts to eat them through the glass. He does it 2 or 3 more times. Since i got the them for feeders, i thought what the heck. So i put leaf and an adult(~2.25") on the turtle dock (floating peice of painted styrofoam that floats and has one side slanted down in the water, partially submerged) inside the aquarium. Well sure enough the adult strucka basking tadpole. The tadpole got a away and the rest swam away. Well later on some more go back up to the dock. All of the sudden, for lack of better words, the adult starts "humping" the water, about 1 hump about every 1.5-3secs He/she would just raise its rear end up for a fraction of a second and then let it drop. It seemed almost as if it was trying to do morse code or something. After the large one was doing then Leaf started too. This went for a few minutes, until i put them back in they're cages, so i could roll a cigarette for some deep thought.
The first theory i came up with was that it was some type of communication, but i think that is very unlikely.
My second theory is that since H. versicolor habitat is only around permanent water that it was a hunting stratedgy designed to get things to move. The third theory was that it was caused by parasites/nerological disease or uncomfort.
The second theory has led to some questions:
First, are H. Versicolor actually semi-aquatic, leaving the trees to hunt in the water? Do frogs really only see things that moving? And Last: is this behavior instinctual or is it a learned behavior.
well thats about it for now,so if you have any insights/comments post away.
peaceout,
mike
Well I was watching my tree frogs(h. versicolor) with the top off the cage. My favorite ch baby(his name is leaf) that i keep with the 6 adults i have( i keep the rest in seperate terariums), jumped onto the ledge.
Next to the cage, at about the same level is an aquarium that contained about 20 green frog tads(i think, could be leopards) that i had raised from eggs, to feed a n. water snake that i had released earlier because of its unchanging temprament.
Well anyway Leaf (hes only ~1.2" long and the tads were around the same length) begins eyeballing them, and sure enough he leaps and attempts to eat them through the glass. He does it 2 or 3 more times. Since i got the them for feeders, i thought what the heck. So i put leaf and an adult(~2.25") on the turtle dock (floating peice of painted styrofoam that floats and has one side slanted down in the water, partially submerged) inside the aquarium. Well sure enough the adult strucka basking tadpole. The tadpole got a away and the rest swam away. Well later on some more go back up to the dock. All of the sudden, for lack of better words, the adult starts "humping" the water, about 1 hump about every 1.5-3secs He/she would just raise its rear end up for a fraction of a second and then let it drop. It seemed almost as if it was trying to do morse code or something. After the large one was doing then Leaf started too. This went for a few minutes, until i put them back in they're cages, so i could roll a cigarette for some deep thought.
The first theory i came up with was that it was some type of communication, but i think that is very unlikely.
My second theory is that since H. versicolor habitat is only around permanent water that it was a hunting stratedgy designed to get things to move. The third theory was that it was caused by parasites/nerological disease or uncomfort.
The second theory has led to some questions:
First, are H. Versicolor actually semi-aquatic, leaving the trees to hunt in the water? Do frogs really only see things that moving? And Last: is this behavior instinctual or is it a learned behavior.
well thats about it for now,so if you have any insights/comments post away.
peaceout,
mike