I feel this species was really under appreciated until recently. I hatched a baby out this week so let’s talk about them in this blog post.
The Eurydactylodes genus contains four species but the only one I work with is the vieillardi. I wanted to really get some experience with each species one at a time before moving on to the next one. So, let’s talk about my own experience with the species vieillardi.
Housing/temperature/humidity - I have been housing mine in tub set ups with artificial flowers, cork bark and vines. I don’t give them a basking spot as my house in quite warm, all year around. I looked at what other breeders do and the subject of giving these kids as basking spot seems to be all over the board. I don’t use UVB. Anyone reading this post is well aware of the whole UVB debate. But….I will dedicate a completely different blog post on that subject at another time. I will be updating this groups enclosures pretty soon to fully BioActive. My plan is to house a pair in a 12x12x18. The ambient temperature in our reptile room is kept at 23 Celsius all year around. It seems to be a comfortable temperature for them. Their humidity level should be between 60-80%. I give their enclosures a light misting once per day to achieve this.
Diet - They are fed on Pangea and they love it. I rotate the flavours with every feeding, which is three times per week. I tried several types of live insects and none of them were interested. I make sure that they get an insect formula in each one of their feeding rotations so they get their protein.
Size - My females weigh in at 7 to 8 grams. Other breeders have reported females weighing up to 12 grams. My male is tiny, weighing 4 grams. I waited an extra season to breed him because I thought he was going to get bigger…..but that never happened! He is helping his girlfriends to produce fertile eggs at this weight.
Behaviour - They are nocturnal and will fire up different colors depending on their mood or whatever decor is in their terrarium. One of my females becomes really dark right before she lays eggs. They are quite social and tolerate handlings. They do well housed in pairs or trios. Just keep one male per group. I have yet to see that mystery goo that they are supposed to release when they are trying to defend themselves.
Breeding - like I mentioned above, I have found fertile eggs. Females will lay a clutch of two eggs every 4 weeks during breeding season. I have found eggs for around 6 months per season. I noted a very high failure to hatch rate for this species. Many of the eggs did well right until they were due to hatch and then fizzled out. Either the eggs would sweat and deflate or pip and die. I did a little research and saw that this is quite common with young female breeders. The older the females get, the healhier the eggs will be. Fingers crossed!
A baby finally hatched on July 9, 2024. It has been a couple of years since we have had a successful hatching. 2024 may be our year! Wish me luck for the rest of the season.
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