# Black A. Green/Black Froglets finally black froglet UPDATED)



## joshua_delancey69 (Mar 1, 2004)

Ok, 
I got some Black Auratus Imports about 5-6 months ago. They started Producing about 2 months after getting them. The tads all turned out great and started morphing. The tads are completly black. The Tads have no color until they have almost completly lost their tail. The they gain green coloraration. I have pics of tads I can get from Richard or he can post. 

I want to discuss now what the odds of froglets producing black would be. To me this is very odd that out of 8 that have morphed so far none have been black but the parents are solid blackish. I have pics below. 

TADS


















TADS WITH LEGS









TADS STARTING TO LOSE TAIL AND GAIN COLOR









Parents actually is a group of 4 all look same. 









OffSpring 4 of them......all have same colorations......


















Any and all discussions are welcome.


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## bluedart (Sep 5, 2005)

if it works the same way as Leopard Gecko genetics (which is relative to genetics in general), you should have all black babies. If not, try pairing up some of the offspring, and then try pairing some of the offspring to the parents. Be a pioneer of this strain!! (or something)


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

I suspect, that your frogs are simply an extreme variation (the ratio of green to black can be variable, hence some have narrow and some have wide stripes) from within a normal population and the color production has simply given you normal colored froglets. This doesn't mean that with a lot of work you cannot lock out all black frogs but it will take some effort. 

Ed


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## nyfrogs (May 1, 2005)

maybe the color fades with age??
genetically they should produce all black


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## frogcrazy (Nov 23, 2004)

Just a thought but maybethey get color when they morph but later they slowly lose there color again.One example of this is the mex. black milk snake which the parents are black but the babies are born as tri colors. Just a thought i geuss time will tell.
Darran


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## felicitedanes (May 2, 2005)

Ok, I know absolutely nothing about dart frog genetics, but what Ed said seems reasonable to me. Someone had several black auratus at the Atlanta reptile show last month, and although a few of them were solid black, a couple also had tiny, tiny slivers of green on their forearms. Plus, even on the pure black ones, I could still see a pattern if I tilted them and looked in the right light. All of this made me think that they were probably just extreme versions of green and black auratus. This was just my conclusion about these particular frogs from a questionable source; I wasn't sure if it would apply to all black auratus, but maybe it does.
Felicite


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## kleinhanz (Oct 18, 2004)

On the flip-side, I had my Gr&Bl auratus throw out a very dark froglet (1 out of 50 or more). The tad was black up until is morphed, and the froglet was very dark. However, as it aged I found that it developed this cool dark/metalic green to it which looked nothing like the parents in pattern or color. Maybe your black parents came from these extremes but could actually be traced back to Gr&Bl parents (Green is dominate and all black is recessive).


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

with respect to the milk snake (L. t. gaigeae) is a Costa Rican montane species. Some people have theorized that the color change in this species is an adaptation to allow for thermoregulation..

Ed


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## Catfur (Oct 5, 2004)

Is it possible that the black auratus coloration is not genetic, but rather a developmental quirk? That these (black) frogs were exposed (or not exposed) to something that caused them never to develop normal coloration?


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## Guest (Jan 11, 2006)

If black is recessive (lets call it little g) and Green and Black is dominant, (lets call it big G), then the only way you can get an all black adult is if its two "color" genes are gg. 
So if you have a male and female all black (gg X gg), all the babies have to be gg(all black). If black is recessive and Green and Black is dominant, then even if you had one of the parents with Green and Black colors, only half of the babies would be green and black, unless those who were black died before morphing.

Then again, maybe its not simple genetics, and the color is controlled by a whole lot of genes and the environment.

What do you guys think? Am I thinking too simple?


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## joshua_delancey69 (Mar 1, 2004)

The Parents are all black no color except they do show some lighter patches of black kinda like a pattern sometimes....


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## Michael Shrom (May 20, 2004)

You should ask Matt Mirabello what he thinks. He was doing some work on what effects color patterns in green and black auratus. The black auratus I have seen seemed to be extreme examples of green and black or Kalua and cream. I'd expect lots of variation in their offspring.


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## Guest (Jan 11, 2006)

try inbreeding a to the father if no luck try it with the mother if you still have no luck then most likely that coloration is independant of genetics.

Matt


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## asydabass (Jul 12, 2005)

OMG Josh, someone sold you 4 painted frogs!! :shock:


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## TimStout (Feb 16, 2004)

Josh,
This is what my Ancon Hill type are producing. The green areas change into small spots or small bars. Interestingly, some of the spots are turning gold now.


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

IMO, I've thought of the blacks as being just an "extreme" few in a thousand of the acon hill/panama canal/small spot/6 spot whatever you want to call it morph. The froglets do look similar. There have been a number of very cool looking panama import auratus that sadly don't breed true. Thats why I was so eager to see what the froglets looked like (Sorry Josh )

Matt found some interesting stuff in relation to pattern, but the frogs involved were not panamanian frogs that had a lot of variation in the first place. There was some stuff with pattern, but I don't believe color really changed much - but that easily could have been due to the genetics not being there in the first place.

It will still be interesting to see how their patterns change and how much of their body will be black, but I wouldn't put too much money down on any of them going black.

Genetics is more complicated that the basic reccessive, dominant stuff we see a lot in the reptile hobby - the deal here was more if they proven out, they would be a morph. They are definately not a morph, and maybe not even a line within a morph (like retic auratus from Hawaiians). Sure, you could probibly selectively breed them into a line (much like I believe the retics have been) but then you open that selective breeding/line breeding/hybridizing/designer frog debate.


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## Ed Martin (Mar 25, 2004)

I agree with Corey on this one. I think that there is a huge variation in this morph and we are seeing an example of this. I have a pair of the "panama canal" morph that I got when they first started coming in back in the spring of 2004. This pair has very reduced spotting. Most of the offspring (100+) looked like the pictures Tim posted. As they got older the green areas on the froglets reduced, although only a few of them developed the reduced spotting pattern of the parents, and the majority were not spotted at all. On the other side of the spectrum, I got one that had no pattern at all so it is all black. 

Josh, I’m sorry that they did not breed true, but I am curious to see these froglets as they mature because they have much more color than any of the offspring mine have produced. 

Ed


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## Guest (Jan 11, 2006)

Josh, Im sure you love them just the same right?? :?


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## joshua_delancey69 (Mar 1, 2004)

I am wondering if their offspring will breed black......a guy from InlandSea had a Black and Green/Black that produced both black and Green/Black froglets././/// I have tons of tads and maybe we will see a black one yet.....


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## bluedart (Sep 5, 2005)

Good luck with that. I'm anxious to see how that turns out.


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## JOHNNY (Nov 30, 2004)

I bred these myself a few years ago and all the young came out with green , most of them lost it by 3 or 4 months of age, some retained it. Weird morph.


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## Guest (Jan 13, 2006)

Id say your parents were visual but not het, breed the babies and youll get black ones i bet. But better to keep the gene pool scweet and introduce another black strain. But thats allot tricker.


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## astrozombies (Jun 17, 2005)

That is odd they produce pretty much normal looking green and blacks. I just seen TIE selling F1 auratus on kingsnake that are from green and black parents but producing blue and black babies as well, which I didn't think was possible.


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

The panama green and blacks seem to produce a range in colors, a lot tend to be "teal/turquoise" aka a blueish green, with some on the green end of the spectrum, and some on the blue end of the spectrum. With some it also depends on mood - they can vary from turquoise to blue (similar to super blues, but I believe that line breeds true).

I think the blacks might just be one of the "extremes" of the spectrum of the acon hill/panama canal zone auratus, a morph that seems to be able to throw frogs from squiggley, to just a couple spots, to probibly these blacks. 

Hawaiians, which are a line similar to this morph since they originated nearby, have kinda the same deal with patterns... usually the normal auratus pattern but throw out some frogs with varying degrees of reticulated pattern. Hawaiians also show some interesting colors as well, but thats selective breeding after introduction to hawaii I believe, but probibly has roots in color variability in the panama frogs in general. 

Its funny that all the variability morphs I can come up with off the top of my head are panama morphs, which is just a melting pot of morphs, both with auratus and pumilio.


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## astrozombies (Jun 17, 2005)

Yes definately a huge amount of variation in the auratus. I had some blue and bronze auratus that came from someone I knew so i was sure of the parent coloring and they turned out to be pretty much blue and black although the black was more of a brown color. This color came more apparent as they grew older and at about 6 months there was no bronze left in them.


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## joshua_delancey69 (Mar 1, 2004)

BUMP FOR TAD PICS


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## joshua_delancey69 (Mar 1, 2004)

21 Froglets to date have morphed NICE, FAT, HEALTHY.


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## joshua_delancey69 (Mar 1, 2004)

Because of how many of these I have decided that when I come back in March I will be letting some of these froglets go to larger breeders/experienced Breeders for Breeding research. I have over 23 froglets now and 10 more on the way....so 33 will be a little many to keep. I will be letting these go in groups of 4 or 5, udecided at the moment and there will be some simple terms I would like to have agreement on. I want to study these frogs seeing they came from 4 black parents and have turned out green and black. These are from WC Parents and are now F1's, I am really interested in the F2 genereation. If you are interested I will be starting a LIST so to say.......just Email me at [email protected] to get on this list. Again I prefer experenced breeders. Thanks


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## steelcube (Mar 17, 2004)

I think the froglets may have some green but may later would fade to all black. As far as I know, some Auratus do not develop their adult coloring right away... 

SB


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## joshua_delancey69 (Mar 1, 2004)

Well the green is fading away in most of the froglets some are almost completly black now.......


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## Guest (Feb 21, 2006)

Josh,
That is interesting that the green is fading. Do you happen to have any pics of the young ones? 
Kevin


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## joshua_delancey69 (Mar 1, 2004)

Bump for Pics of young they Started morphing on 10 December........ I have over 20



















this one kept its pattern so far


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## TimStout (Feb 16, 2004)

Josh,
I've produced over 60 frogs from my bronze with green spot auratus (2004 importation). All start out as black with green spots and look almost identical to yours in their first 1-2 months as froglets but then begin to lighten up to the bronze background color. I've also seen their spotting change to a golden color and then back to green a few months later. I currently have 1 juvi that is still holding its black background color.


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## joshua_delancey69 (Mar 1, 2004)

THEY HAVE FINALLY STARTED TURNING ALL BLACK HERE IS ONE OF THE FIRST I HAVE FOUND


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## defaced (May 23, 2005)

You know what's funny, a week ago you could hardly give them away and now I'll bet you'll be fighting people off with a stick at close to 50 bucks a pop. Just a prediction. BTW, I would have bought some but I'm on *freeze* from the girlfriend. I have a soft spot for Auratus.


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## joshua_delancey69 (Mar 1, 2004)

I just moved them to my new house where I can monotor them a little so I plan on holding on to them for a little while since noone took any of them even at $20 ea


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## Stratusfaction (Mar 7, 2006)

I almost hate to ask but is it too late? :?


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## joshua_delancey69 (Mar 1, 2004)

Well Im not, not going to sell them but I am going to wait and make sure they turn black then sell them as what they are. I was sellling them as Green/Black becasue we had no clue if they would change. But now they are changing I will sell them as Black I have probally found 5-8 that are all black so they will be black as adults.


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## Stratusfaction (Mar 7, 2006)

Sounds good to me. If you wish you may send me a PM and let me know how much 2-4 would cost shipping included. I'd also like to know how long before your going to be selling these guys.


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