Exotic Frogs Raised at Maryland Farm
Wednesday, 01 Apr 2009, 6:58 PM EDT By: John Henrehan
ELLICOTT CITY, Md. - There's an enormous frog farm in Howard County, Maryland. It's in a red barn just west of Ellicott City.
At any given time, there are about 500 exotic, adult frogs at the farm. They are sold to collectors, universities, and research agencies.
Emergency Room physician Sean Stewart owns the frog farm. He specializes in raising very colorful frogs which originate in Central and South America. They are known as poison dart frogs, because native peoples from that area would tip their arrows and spears with fluids from the frog. The treated spears and arrows would kill the intended target.
The frogs are colorful because that tells predators they taste bad. In the wild, the poison comes from alkaloid plants which are eaten by local insects. The frogs eat the insects, and the magnified poison becomes part of the frog.
Dr. Stewart feeds his frogs flies and crickets, so his specimens are not poisonous. They sell for about $75 each, depending on the coloration.
Stewart calls his business Herpetologic. It also sells very colorful snakes, called green tree pythons. Some of them, which are bred for colors other than green, can fetch thousands of dollars from collectors.
Source: MyFoxDC