Back in last June, we acquired some true masters of camouflage, three Vietnamese mossy frogs, and now we have some exciting breeding developments to share with you.
On December 29, keepers secured a frogspawn of three eggs, one of which turned out to be fertile and healthy. Now developing steadily behind the scenes, the fingernail-sized little tadpole will hopefully start to grow limbs in a couple months and ultimately join its conspecifics in our Palm House. Vietnamese mossy frogs are quite hard to breed in human care; as there have been no successful attempts in Hungary to our knowledge, we are on the brink of a major breeding success.
Native to rainforests in Northern Vietnam and Laos as well as adjacent parts of China, Vietnamese mossy frogs (Theloderma corticale) are a semi-aquatic species that dwells in caves and crevices, easily blending in with their environment due to skin patterns and protrusions that make them look like clumps of moss on a rock – such mimicry comes in very handy when catching insects or hiding from potential danger. With decreasing numbers in the wild due to habitat loss and illegal captures, they are included in the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species.
Debrecen Zoo and Amusement Park
