Ornated horned frog

My frog

I have a Bell's ornated horned frog. I think he sometime calling, he is male. Snout to vent length is about 6cm(2.4inch). When I was boy, I always keep some animals(bird , frog, snake, dog, fish, etc). But recently, I don't have any animals. I found him at tropical fish shop and I charmed him. Then I got information from comercial BBS (Nifty-Serve), I think it's easy to keep him. But actually, it is not so easy to keep him. But I love him, and studing hepetology is very interesting! [side view photo(GIF)103KB]

Taxonomy

Bell's horned frog's scientific name is Ceratophrys Ornata. It means 'horned' and 'ornated'. He lives south America. It belongs to 'Leptodactylidae'. Ceratophrys frog is ....

Ceratophrys ornata(Bell's ornated horned frog,Argentine horned frog)
octaploid of chacoan horned frog.
Ceratophrys cranwelli(Chacoan horned frog)
Very similar to Bell's horned frog, but his color is brownish not greenish. Diploid.
Ceratophrys cornuta(Surinam horned frog)
He has large horn than other ceratophrys.
Ceratophrys calcarata(Colombian horned frog)
Similar to cornuta, but his leg is shoter.
Ceratophrys aurita(Brazillian horned frog)
Largest horend frog. It is not imported now.

How to keep him

There are many information in English. But Japanese information is not available except for a some tropical fish magazine's article. Please read these link's infromtaion.

How to keep cranwell horned frog by Tuomas Koivu
How to keep Ornate Horned Frogs by Melissa Kaplan
FAQ about Argentinian Horned Frog
Pacman Frog Care Sheet

Food

I usually feed him cricket with vitumin and calcium dusting. I use Rep-Cal Research Lab's 'HERPTIVITE' and 'Phsphorous-Free CALCIUM with VIT. D3'.

Keeping crickets

At Japan, cricket(Gryllus bimaculatus) is popular. At America , domestic cricket(Acheta domestica) is popular. For to keep only one frog, it is easy to buy cricket from a pet shop weekly. But it is easy and cheap to keep criket by my own, especially keeping many frogs. Plese refer these links.

Bibliography

There are many English book.

de Vosjoli, P. 1990. The General Care and Maintenance of Horned Frogs. Advanced Vivarium Systems
32 page reaflet. This is very useful.
Hunziker R. 1994. Horned Frogs. T.F.H. Publications
All color(48p). This book describes breeding horned frog.
de Vosjoli, P. , Mailloux R., "The husbandry and propagation of the Chacoan horned frog(Ceratophrys cranwelli)",The VIVARIUM Vol 1(2):5-7
Biological reference from Free MEDLINE
DNA sequence of horned frog's cytochrome b
data from NCBI Entrez
NCBI Taxonomy Browser(Anura)
NCBI Genebank's frog taxnomy browser.
A. Graybeal, The phylogenetic utility of cytochrome b: lessons from bufonid frogs., Mol Phylogenet Evol 2:256-269 (1993)