My dendrobates leucomela darts arrived! I’m collectively calling all 4 “The Hive” because their common name is bumble bee dart frog.
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If I ever get into frogs I want poison darts of various species including these beauties!! 
stunning.
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More pictures! It seems that I have one definite male out of the 4 as one keeps calling. I guess that means he approves his new home. They were sold as juveniles but I guess I got an older batch of leucs. All 4 tried to immediately jump out as soon as I started to open the lid of the container they were shipped in
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A cool fact:
Dart frogs are completely non-toxic when bred in captivity. They gain their toxicity from the food that they eat in the wild. Even wild caught dart frogs will lose their toxins over time if kept in captivity and given a toxin free diet.
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Yep I know. Neat stuff isnt it. Im hoping when I attempt to overturn the bylaw where I live regarding venomous to allow for mildly venomous/poisonous creatures to point this out regarding dart frogs. Their prob the only kind of amphibians I can think of that I’d like to try keeping if I could.
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I’ve always wanted some darts but God I hate fruit flys…At least I believe thats what they eat. Bunch of fruit flies loose in the house…No sirrry lol.
The fruit flies you feed them are flightless, that means that even if they did escape(which would be very hard for a flightless creature) they would just be able to crawl around on the ground and probably end up dying.
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Flightless fruit flies are actually great at escaping, because they retain the ability to walk up the walls. Also, “flightless” fruit flies are not really 100% incapable of flying.
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Interesting, I never knew that (though I’ve never kept fruit flies). Fruitless fruit flies are bred for the recessive trait that makes their flight muscles to weak to fly (or as you say to weak to fly for long).
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I’ve maintained a colony of them for tiny baby herps, and some of them escaped from time to time, but I’ve never had a large number of fruit flies escape and infest my home.
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They’ve never escaped en masse in my home, but if you’re worried I suggest apple cider vinegar traps
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Do Dart Frogs eat anything other than fruit flys?
It depends on the size, from what I’ve heard that’s the most nutritious option though I know they eat isopods (not part of the supplied diet, usually just from the terrarium if it’s bioactive). I think bigger species and individuals can be fed silkworms, maybe mealworms (not sure about the chitin, I’ll let someone with more experience verify that), and dubia roaches (they’d have to be small roaches). I’m not sure if it’s possible to avoid feeding flies altogether or if it’s only possible to avoid feeding them every feeding.
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Awesome thanks.
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I can’t think of any darts capable of eating mealworms, silkworms or dubias. Those bugs are huge compared to the frogs. The largest darts can be around 2-2.4in or smth iirc. People mainly feed melanogaster or hydei fruit flies, darts will also eat springtails, dwarf isopods, rice flour beetle larvae, very VERY small black soldier fly larvae, and bean beetles. I’ve heard of too many bean beetles causing lethal impaction in smaller darts tho so I only feed bean beetles to my small, but bigger than a dart, geckos
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I wasn’t sure about those since I’ve never actually had dart frogs…yet.
You said that you had a male, are you housing them together, and if you are, are you planning on hatching the eggs? What sized enclosures do you have them in and what kind of plants are in there? Just wondering since I’m hoping to get a dart frog + mourning gecko setup in the next couple years.
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I have a total of 4 leucomelas in a 40gal. Females reach maturity around a year and males around 6months. I have a bunch of marbled pothos, a begonia (begonias LOVE dart vivs), bromeliads, ficus pumila oakleaf creeping fig, there’s another plant but I don’t remember its name. So far I haven’t had any breeding action, just know that it’s harder to get the tadpoles out of a bromeliad so if you’re looking for a breeding setup, leave the bromeliads out. Mine is more for looks than for breeding, but if they do I’ll sell the babies
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