Seeking advice from amphibian researchers who have successfully used temporary non-toxic markers to mark frogs with waterproof skin. Zinc creams work well on cane toads as they have dry, warty skin. The problem occurs for frogs as Litoria frogs tend to wipe off the marker when they apply their waterproof secretion.
I am attempting to find out how often they shed their skin, so the marker needs to stay on until the animal sheds.
Cheers, Nicholas
Hi, you could try PIT tags (http://www.biomark.com/) or visible implant elastomers (http://www.nmt.us/products/vie/vie.shtml). Both work well with amphibians with "wet" skin. Good luck
Germán Orizaola
For some species pattern mapping works not bad but it requires a fine eye and patience. As was said before tags (VIE, VI alpha etc.) are the best choice. If you have limited resources there is always good ol' toe clipping (shouldn't be used on tree frogs though)
http://conphys.oxfordjournals.org/content/2/1/cou012.full.pdf+html
lipstick -apparently. although I would have thought it rubbed off in a similar way to zinc, perhaps the brand is important!
Several researchers have used fluorescent dyes injected subcutaneously. See: Nishikawa, K.C. & P.M. Service. 1988. A fluorescent marking technique for terrestrial salamanders. Journal of Herpetology 22:349-351. She got the dyes from Scientific Marking materials of Seattle, Washington to mark several species of salamanders.
Hi, have you thought about applying the already mentioned fluorescent dyes cutaneously (see http://www.revistas.usp.br/phyllo/article/view/42668/46337). From my point of view leaf frogs regularly shed their skin (and eat it) daily just prior activity (usually in the evenings)
clearly you want something that will come off with the skin. I've had success with light abrasion of the skin using fluorescent pigment granules in an airbrush. Deeper application results in a mark that will persist through multiple shed cycles so I don't recommend this technique. I successfully used tissue adhesive to affix plastic marks to treefrogs but the material I used (cyanoacrylate) was clearly irritating to the frogs; I believe it was the solvent that was irritating to their eyes. Perhaps there's a way to get around that. Also, that was in the 1980s so perhaps more modern tissue adhesives would not have the same solvents. It's worth checking into. If you find an adhesive that works, you could apply it and immediately shake some inert pigment granules onto it. I would also consider a low-tech method such as a small amount of India Ink or a kerotin staining dye or even a vital dye on a cotton swab breifly rubbed on a spot on the back. The only downside I see of that is when they eat their skin and ingest the material. That's why I think tissue cement with inert pigment granules might be the best choice.
Definitely VIE Markers from NMT tech, as suggested before. I used it on two italian species of newts, one species of toad and two species of frog. Once you have a little experience with the injector, you'll find that this kind of mark is really fast. It is sub cutaneous, so you should have no problems of tag loss. If you choose this method, let us know!
Hi, maybe you could use to mark by placing small curve phosphorescent piercing on the body or arms and legs; these parts must be considerate of the site of placement and color scheme. All best.
Thank you everyone for your suggestions. I might not have structured my questions properly. Majority of your comments involved tags which are great for semi-permanent marking and distinguishing individuals, but I will control for that as the frogs are kept in individual enclosures. What im looking for are markers that will come off when the frogs sloughs its skin. tags will stay on a frog for long period of time.
fluorescent dyes are a possibility as suggested by A. R. Breisch, Tobias Eisenberg and Bryant Wayne Buchanan, which I will look into. lipstick has mixed results and will depend on brand as the cheap ones are rubbed off. tissue cement with inert pigment granules does sound like a good choice.
Again another problem is that the frogs will eat the slough skin mentioned by Bryant Wayne Buchanan, so that needs to be taken into account.
Thank you everyone for your valuable comments and I will try some of these and get back to you whichever works best for these type of frogs
Cheers,
Nicholas, as I understand your problem your are looking for a dye that disappears, with the skin when it's shed. I am not a frog specialist, so I have no idea about their skin structure. From this position, I'd try an amino-reactive fluorecent dye (eg FITC or TRITC or even Dansyl chloride). It's probably important which skin layer(s) are (not) labelled, so you might need to experiment a bit (e.g. pure Ethanol to pure DMSO as solvent to control skin penetration) and do some histology (should be rather simple: examine thin vertical sections under a fluorescence microscope) to identify optimal parameters (concentration, solvent). A few microliters on a few skin spots should not do much harm to the frogs, I suppose.
After reading all the responses, I would like to use a non-toxic lipstick to mark commun tads (Bufo bufo) for only 1-2 hours.
I don't know if it might help after all this time, but I published last year a contribution about VIE tags and mortality (freely available here: Article Marking tadpoles with Visible Implant Elastomer (VIE) tags: ...
).Hope it can be useful!
Cheers,
Mattia
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