gtp / green tree frog question

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GRUNT

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Hey everyone I was looking for advice on putting green tree frogs in same enclosure as a gtp I understand potential for disease and parasites like tapeworm in frogs but does anyone know if this can be treated or minimised by breeding frogs I remember years ago seeing 4 or 5 green tree frogs in with a gtp at taronga zoo any advice would be appreciated thanks in advance.
 
I wouldn't advice it, just cause the gtp probably will strike when the frogs jump/ the frogs probably will wanna be near the top I'm assuming, well with my old frogs that was the case and it's just not safe for your frogs, would be very nice if you could!! But then again I'm no expert at all, so I might be wrong.
 
Their natural prey is manly rodents and sometimes reptiles so my suggestion would be no. I suppose if you kept your GTP well fed it may leave the frogs alone but is it worth the risk.
 
As the OP indicated, Taronga still has both in the same enclosure. It's likely that baby GTPs eat small frogs (adults don't eat frogs), and it's quite likely that large frogs eat small GTPs (I think Michael C. has a photo?) so just be careful with your sizes and you should be fine as long as there's plenty of room.

Jamie
 
As the OP indicated, Taronga still has both in the same enclosure. It's likely that baby GTPs eat small frogs (adults don't eat frogs), and it's quite likely that large frogs eat small GTPs (I think Michael C. has a photo?) so just be careful with your sizes and you should be fine as long as there's plenty of room.

Jamie
That's quite interesting that older GTP's don't eat frogs. Can you shed some light as to why they don't?
 
Adult GTPs don't eat frogs or reptiles.
Adult GTPs don't eat frogs just like you don't eat grass.
You can keep frogs and GTPs together as long as you have them in a huge enclosure.
 
Adult GTPs don't eat frogs or reptiles.
Adult GTPs don't eat frogs just like you don't eat grass.
You can keep frogs and GTPs together as long as you have them in a huge enclosure.
Although quite amusing that they don't because we don't eat grass that really doesn't make me feel like you have answered my question. Firstly am I right that most literature on the Internet including university studies say that GTP's eat frogs and reptiles occasionally is only referring to juvenile GTP's and secondly is there a scientific reason that they go off this food source. I know that you breed GTP's and are therefore probably right in what you say but would like to know why if you know.
 
can you define a huge enclosure??? what size are we talking??? cheers...
 
It's likely that many of the writers of older texts just "assumed" that adult pythons (Morelia) eat frogs and reptiles, just as many of the writers and taxonomists in the 40s & 50s assumed that smaller snakes ate insects. (The texts which were available to me in those days were very misleading because nobody did anything but catch things and put them into jars of preservative - no stomach content analysis, no reproductive studies or anything like that).

Many snakes, and especially GTPs, undergo a niche change as they grow - they occupy a different part of the habitat as they get bigger. The heat pits in Morelia (not present in Aspidites which have a large proportion of their food as reptiles) say to me that these things were actually meant to live most of their lives eating warm-blooded prey (mammals, birds), so once they are large enough to overpower mice, rats birds or whatever, that's their preferred food because it's what they are equipped to deal with. Very small pythons cannot overpower these food items, so they aim lower, at frogs, skinks etc. Baby pythons would rarely, if ever, come across pinky mice in the bush, and I'd doubt if they would eat them if they did, in the first few months of life. Our use of these food items to raise hatchies often makes the starting of a feed response more difficult, because it is very foreign to a small python... but it's the only option we have sometimes. Put a suitably sized skink or gecko in an enclosure with a small python and the fun begins immediately - hence the scenting with lizard or frog scent to get difficult starters feeding.

There may be some trigger which causes the change at a certain point in their growth.

Jamie
 
It's likely that many of the writers of older texts just "assumed" that adult pythons (Morelia) eat frogs and reptiles, just as many of the writers and taxonomists in the 40s & 50s assumed that smaller snakes ate insects. (The texts which were available to me in those days were very misleading because nobody did anything but catch things and put them into jars of preservative - no stomach content analysis, no reproductive studies or anything like that).

Many snakes, and especially GTPs, undergo a niche change as they grow - they occupy a different part of the habitat as they get bigger. The heat pits in Morelia (not present in Aspidites which have a large proportion of their food as reptiles) say to me that these things were actually meant to live most of their lives eating warm-blooded prey (mammals, birds), so once they are large enough to overpower mice, rats birds or whatever, that's their preferred food because it's what they are equipped to deal with. Very small pythons cannot overpower these food items, so they aim lower, at frogs, skinks etc. Baby pythons would rarely, if ever, come across pinky mice in the bush, and I'd doubt if they would eat them if they did, in the first few months of life. Our use of these food items to raise hatchies often makes the starting of a feed response more difficult, because it is very foreign to a small python... but it's the only option we have sometimes. Put a suitably sized skink or gecko in an enclosure with a small python and the fun begins immediately - hence the scenting with lizard or frog scent to get difficult starters feeding.

There may be some trigger which causes the change at a certain point in their growth.

Jamie
Excellent answer , that is exactly what I was after. I guess that this would then be the case with most Morelia then. Do you know what the natural prey items for the larger species of python hatchlings would be?
 
My feeling is that most Morelia hatchlings are reptile (& maybe frog) eaters for the first few months of life, although in my experience, Carpet babies of all subspecies prefer furred rodents from day 1 - even a newly-hatched carpet can constrict, kill and eat a small, active weaner mouse, whereas a GTP baby is just too small to do this. But even Carpets can sometimes be reluctant to take mice initially, but will go into ambush mode immediately when confronted with a skink or gecko.

I always start Carpets on fairly large, furred fuzzies or small weaners from their first meal because I get a good response from them. I just have a feeling that, unlike elapids, (Browns, King Browns, Tigers etc) which will readily go down tight burrows looking for rodent prey of any size, that Morelias are unlikely to behave this way. Brown snakes are as much sight hunters as scent hunters, and will actively chase a prey item on the ground or in a burrow system, but even small Carpets are ambush feeders, so are unlikely to seek food in this manner.

I may be wrong though :)! (Perish the thought!!!)

Jamie
 
I think that you're spot on in both of your posts there Jamie. 8)

I personally would not mix frogs and GTP's of any size, unless it was purely for display purposes but even then only temporarily. If you were to consider doing this, then the size and age of the GTP's and frogs is critical. If they were juvenile snakes and metamorph frogs then the snakes may eat the froglets. If they were adult Green Tree Frogs and hatchling GTP's you will probably find a fat frog and a missing snake. :(
 
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