The Amphibian Foundation's Frog Blog

This year, the Amphibian Foundation and partners (Florida Fish and Wildlife, Orianne Society, Detroit Zoo, and others) received a Conservation Wildlife Tag grant to support captive breeding efforts for the imperiled Striped Newt ( Notophthalmus perstriatus ). The support has gone towards improvements int he captive propagation facilities, and in the establishment of a large Daphnia culturing facility to produce live food for both the adult and larval newts. A paedomorphic adult newt in the Amphibian Lab at the Amphibian Foundation Yesterday, we completed the next phase by moving the colony into our Amphibian Lab, a climate controlled facility where temperature and photoperiod can be optimized for the health of the newts. Luckily, we had a great team to help us with task that involved moving large amounts of water (always fun) as well as a good amount of bleach, and gingerly moving these newts into their new home Amanda (left), Javiera (middle) and Abby (right) obviously ...

Beautiful Fall Line Sandhills WMA (Aug 2017) We are honored and excited to be invited to contribute to the Striped Newt Repatriation Project. This collaborative effort, lead by Ryan Means of the Coastal Plains Institute is focused on the release and  monitoring of captive bred Striped Newts ( Notophthalmus perstriatus ) into protected and managed habitat in the southeastern coastal plain. This season, the Amphibian Foundation and the Detroit Zoo join Jacksonville Zoo, Memphis Zoo, Central Florida Zoo and Lowry Park Zoo in maintaining captive breeding populations of the 3 remaining populations of Striped Newts. AF staff went into the field with Ryan, John Jensen from Georgia Department of Natural Resources and Pierson Hill from Florida Fish and Wildlife at Fall Line Sandhills Wildlife Management Area to collect wild Stripe Newt larvae. The goal was to collect 25 larvae in order to establish captive breeding colonies at the foundation and Detroit Zoo ... the mission ...