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We analysed the diet of Ischnocnema henselii from a subtropical Araucaria forest through stomach flushing. The identified prey items comprised arthropods such as spiders, ants, orthopterans, collembolans and homopterans. We consider I. henselii to be a nocturnal and opportunistic sit-and-wait predator. Small animals are preferred. Because this species lives permanently on the forest floor, we also determined the composition of the habitat's leaf-litter mesofauna. By using Winkler sieve extraction, we obtained a spectrum of small invertebrates that reflected the prey in the stomach contents well. The only exceptions were mites, the most abundant leaf-litter inhabitants, which frogs either avoided or ignored. Our results represent the first information on the diet of I. henselii and are discussed in comparison with data on related species and in relation to the relevance of this predator within the food web of subtropical montane rain forests in southern Brazil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stomach-flushing is a gentle treatment in analysing the diet of vertebrates. We applied this method in the study of seasonal nutrition of anurans of 15 species at an Araucaria forest habitat on the Serra Geral of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Over 500 frogs and toads of different body size were handled in order to evaluate an improved protocol without narcosis using soft infusion tubes in order to avoid negative effects of the flushing procedure. The specimens were treated soon after capture and then returned to the sampling sites. Our results are discussed with reference to the few studies on stomach flushing in amphibians. The improved technique is recommended to avoid killing of numerous animals for nutritional studies, in particular because of the worldwide threatening of amphibian populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]