- African pancake tortoise
- Amethystine python
- Black marsh turtle
- Blue-tongued skink
- Colombian rainbow boa
- Cuban boa
- Egyptian tortoise
- Geoffroy's side-necked turtle
- Giant tortoise
- Gila monster
- Golden Mantella frog
- Green tree python
- Inland bearded dragon
- Madagascan tree boa
- Marbled milk frog
- Philippine sail-fin water dragon
- Plumed basilisk
- Poison arrow frog
- Prehensile-tailed skink
- Red-eared terrapin
- Rhinoceros iguana
- Standing's day gecko
- Thai tree frog
- Veiled chameleon
- West African dwarf crocodile
- Western chuckwalla
- White-lipped python
- Yellow-spotted Amazon River turtle
- Yellow-headed day's gecko
Golden Mantella frog
Scientific name: Mantella aurantiaca
Country: Madagascar
Diet: In the wild their diet usually consists of termites, ants, and fruit flies but they will eat almost any insect they can fit in their mouths.
Habitats: They are found in forests of Madagascar at an altitude of about 900metres. They usually live in mossy mounds close to shallow swampy waters.
Conservation status: Critically endangered
Relatives: Wallaces' flying frog
Description: About 1 inch long, these frogs are a brilliant golden-orange colour with black eyes. They occasionally have red flash marks on the inner portion of the hind legs . Their legs are very short with distinct adhesive disks found on the fingers and toes. Males are generally smaller, slimmer and more angular in build than females.
Lifestyle: Golden mantellas usually live in groups. The male to female ratio in the wild is about 2 to 1 and is therefore there are more males in a group than females. They are active in the day. The males golden mantella does not call as much as other species of mantella. This may be because it doesn't want to attract attention from predators or alternatively, because it is conserving energy.
Growing up: Mantellas mate at the start of the rainy season when there is lots of food about. Eggs are then layed on damp moss, underneath damp moss, underneath damp bark and in rock crevices, but always close to water. Once the eggs are laid, parent golden mantellas have nothing more to do with them
Keeping in touch: Males call to attract female mates by clicking.
Family and friends: They live in groups with twice as many males as females.
Fun Fact
A group of mantellas is called an 'army'.
Did you know?
The brilliant colors exhibited by the golden mantella are as a result of 'aposematic coloration'. This means that they display the bright colours usually associated with toxic species to ward off predators.
Conservation news
The golden mantella is restricted to a fragment of forest surrounded by degraded land, and the remaining forest is under threat from subsistence agriculture, timber extraction, fires and expanding human settlements. Limits on the exportation of these animals have been imposed and the trade has been greatly reduced as a result.
