Diet:  Insectivores: They require small live prey to hunt. This is easily achieved by providing them with flightless or wingless fruit flies. Baby and juvenile True Nominal will eat Drosophila melanogaster fruit flies, and large adults may seek out Drosophila hydei. Springtails are also a wonderfully sized snack for fingernail frogs.  The flies and springtails on their own are a poor nutritional source.  We recommend “dusting” your fruit flies with a high quality vitamin and mineral supplement.

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Breeding: If you have provided all the necessary parameters to keep your fantastica True Nominal happy and healthy, they are considered easy to moderate to breed in a vivarium. This makes them a popular choice for many dart frog enthusiasts, but less common with beginners.  Eggs will be laid in the leaf litter or in a bromeliad in a secluded location. Many hobbyists will place a film canister, tilted 45 degrees and mounted to a wall or sturdy decoration to give the frogs a nice quiet place to lay their eggs.  Some also use artificial bromeliads. Fantastica frogs are known for being slightly picky about where they lay, and their eggs are notoriously difficult to find. The male will clean and protect the eggs until they hatch. Typically 4-6 eggs will be laid at one time.  The eggs take approximately 10-14 days to fully develop, at which point they will hatch and the adults will return to give the tadpoles a piggyback ride to a shallow pond or the moist center of a bromeliad. The tadpoles will take approximately 60-80 days to fully metamorphosize into colorful little froglets.