Development of a body condition score for the mountain chicken frog (Leptodactylus fallax)

Abstract

The Critically Endangered mountain chicken frog (Leptodactylus fallax) has undergone drastic population decline due to habitat loss, hunting, invasive species, and chytridiomycosis. In response, several partner institutions initiated a conservation breeding program. It is important to maintain the captive population in good health. Therefore the program partners have recommended establishment of protocols for health examination of the species, including body condition assessment. Visual body condition scoring is a useful means to assess body condition in zoo animals for which regular bodyweight measurements are impractical or associated with capture-related stress. In this study, the authors developed a visual body condition score for the mountain chicken frog based on an ordinal categorical scale from 1 to 5 (1 = lowest body condition, 5 = highest body condition) using anatomical features that vary with total body energy reserves. Veterinary staff, animal managers, keepers, researchers, and students subsequently used the body condition score to assign scores to 98 mountain chicken frogs (41 male, 57 female) aged between 8 months and 12 years housed in five zoos in the UK and Jersey between February and March 2016. Body condition scores showed moderate (rho = 0.54; males) to strong (rho = 0.6; females) correlation with the scaled mass index, an objective measure of total energy reserves. The majority of pairwise comparisons between scores showed slight to substantial intra-observer agreement (93.8%) and slight to almost perfect inter-observer agreement (97.2%). Cases of poor agreement were likely due to limited observer experience working with the species.

01.Body size comparisons between wild and captive puff adders Bitis arietans

“…Therefore, we suggest that a validated scoring system for body condition of B. arietans, based on visual appearance in conjunction with SMI calculations, may better account for the differing structural composition of an animal (Santos & Llorente, 2004;Jayson et al, 2018) and might be useful in informing the captive management of this species. Data on health impacts of high SMI in B. arietans are not available, therefore we suggest that future research should focus on health issues linked to body condition in this and other snake species.…”

A Retrospective Review of Post-Metamorphic Mountain Chicken Frog (Leptodactylus Fallax) Necropsy Findings From European Zoological Collections, 1998 to 2018

“…31,32 An objective visual body scoring system for MCF has recently been developed which does not require handling of the animal. 18 Frequent visual assessments might prove a useful non-invasive method for identifying health issues and monitoring response to treatment.…”

Breeding site attendance and breeding success in Phyllomedusa trinitatis (Anura: Phyllomedusidae)

“…Male body condition was calculated by dividing body mass by SVL (Jayson et al 2018). All statistical analyses and model selections were conducted in R Studio version 3.6.1 (R Core Team 2019).…”