# Dart Frog Registry/Pedigree system



## rmelancon (Apr 5, 2004)

I am building an online Registry system for tracking dart frog bloodlines (among other things). It is tailored towards darts but I am hoping to get other uses out of it as well. I will be looking for a few beta testers in the next few weeks/months and didn't know if some folks on the board would be interested in being a beta user/tester. Initially I only need a few users and depending on my workload it may be weeks or months before the beta is ready for testing.

Thanks,
Robb


----------



## Jordan B (Oct 8, 2004)

I'm interested, what do you need?


----------



## Dane (Aug 19, 2004)

Sign me up. Not sure what kind of qualifications you'll need, but I'd love to help.


----------



## Guest (Aug 26, 2005)

I'm new - so I'm working on my first frogs (D. azureus) but if I can help I'm game!


----------



## mnchartier (May 9, 2005)

You got my interest in this.


----------



## booboo (Jan 22, 2005)

This sounds great But i only have two species of frogs and i think you are going to want peopl with big collections so you can get more out of a few people then we all can join in if it works!

Great idea let us know i would love to help


----------



## Guest (Aug 28, 2005)

Good to see something like this taking finally taking shape. To help bring some of you "up to speed" on this idea: http://www.dendroboard.com/phpBB2/viewt ... sc&start=0


----------



## rmelancon (Apr 5, 2004)

Thanks to all who replied, I am going to be contacting people shortly as the prototype is ready. It will be very limited in the number of testers at first so if I don't contact you at first please don't take it personally.

Thanks,
Robb


----------



## rmelancon (Apr 5, 2004)

For those that I contacted, when adding bloodlines etc. please only create bloodlines under your user registration. You can create registered offspring under someone elses registrations (to use in your bloodlines) but only create bloodlines under your own name. This will hopefully avoid confusion since I have multiple users testing the system. 

Obviously when the system goes live you will only be able to see and edit your own information, but I am allowing everyone access to all information so that you can get an understanding of how the system functions.

Thanks,
Robb

PS - you can double click the registration key for offspring and hit ctrl+c to copy to the clipboard then go to your bloodline and ctrl+v to paste into the key field.


----------



## snmreptiles (Feb 26, 2004)

Don't know how far you are into this...but you might check out the cornsnake registery to see how other people are doing the same kind of thing. It's about 6 months old, and seems pretty cool. Might help you, might not!

MIKE


----------



## joshua_delancey69 (Mar 1, 2004)

man wish i had seen this earlier i would have volunteered good luck robb


----------



## rmelancon (Apr 5, 2004)

I looked at the cornsnake registry and there are certainly similarities with what I have built. One of the main concerns I will have to deal with is how I go about allowing one to register a bloodline. For instance, if you have a D. lamasi that you got from some guy who told you he got it from someone off of frognet who told you it was a "Steve Tarlton" line. Two problems immediately present themselves: 1) You are relying on second and third hand information about where the animal actually came from. You also don't know what Steve Tarlton line or even if there are multiple lines. 2) If Steve Tarlton's lines are not registered in the system there is no way to make the links to your animals. So in order for the system to be useful in terms of tracking lines, the information put in has to be correct and complete. Garbage in = Garbage out. To be useful I can't simply allow people to put in their animals that cannot be traced back to a WC or imported bloodline. Without the lineage tracking, it simply becomes a huge list of unrelatable animals which I don't think is very useful.
The ACR (cornsnake reg.) has forms that you download, fill out and then send in to be processed. This requires potentially a lot of work by a person simply processing forms. The way my system works is that a breeder can create registered offspring for their bloodline within the application. They then send the keys generated to the person who wants to register their animals underneath that line. They create their own bloodline registration and enter the keys given to them by the breeder for their animals. In doing this the system parents their animals to the breeders, establishing the family tree.
I think what I will have to do for cases like the Tarlton line animals is to create a registry entries for Steve Tarlton that will serve as the "root" bloodlines and then work with hobbyist to start completing the tree only allowing animals that are absolutely known to come from the line. I will likely have to do this for other long time hobbyists who don't wish to participate. Again the key is to try to keep the information as accurate and complete as possible, otherwise any registry system becomes infinitely less useful.


----------



## Dane (Aug 19, 2004)

Would it be effective time and money-wise to base it on DNA analysis of toe clippings? That could offer proof positive of any lineage questions.


----------



## rmelancon (Apr 5, 2004)

Certainly a good idea. We would need DNA from the "root" lines which in some cases would not be a problem but in other cases it would be. In the case I used above I don't know if the "original" Steve Tarlton lamasi are still out there. I would also think DNA analysis isn't readily available and would imagine it to be cost prohibitive for most hobbyists. Also not being a genetics Guru if you have two completely unrelated frogs would you be able to match the DNA to both lines of parents?


----------



## rmelancon (Apr 5, 2004)

The following is a link to a Word document that gives an overview of the system including screen shots. It can also serve as a help guide for those that are registered.

http://frogtracks.robbster.com/help/frogtrackshelp.htm


----------



## rmelancon (Apr 5, 2004)

There was a bug (should be fixed now) that was causing WC registered animals to not be added to the bloodline. If you think you experienced this PM me and I'll try to fix your lines to reflect what you were trying to do.


----------



## rmelancon (Apr 5, 2004)

I'm going to post some PM's that I've been going back and forth with one of the beta users. I'm assuming others are going to run into similar issues.

Jordan B wrote:
Ok, I added some animals. How do I add multipe morphs in a group? For example, 3 retics of seperate bloodlines. 2 are standard, one is spotted/striped. Can I make a group out of these that include that information? Alos, how do you put in how many frogs you have? I created the bloolines, but I can't put any numbers of animals in it. Thanks. This is a great idea, thanks for getting it together. 

Jordan

rmelancon wrote:
First the parent bloodlines will need to be in the system in order to properly link animals to their parent bloodlines. Read the document I put up at http://frogtracks.robbster.com/help/frogtrackshelp.htm 

Read the very last section. 

First: you cannot mix morphs in a bloodline. You can't mix a blue auratus with a green auratus. So if spotted retics are a true "morph" they can't be mixed with "standard" retics, at least in this system. The idea being to discourage hybrids. If as a hobby we decide that spotted and standard are the same, like no-dots and dotted citronella, (which is my opinion that they are), then we first would need to add the parent bloodlines of your three animals into the system. Preferably the breeder whom you got them from would be registered in the system and they would then send you keys for each of your animals that you would then use to add the animals to your bloodlines. I realize it's a bit confusing but once you see it work it starts to make sense. 

Realize that this is a "test" system for the moment, so in order to demonstrate how this will work when the system goes live, can you tell me the three breeders whom you got the animals from and I will create entries in the system and then send you keys to register the animals. 

Note, when you add the animals with the keys I send you can designate in the "comment" field for each animal which ones have spots, etc. 

Robb

Jordan B wrote:
Ok. They are 3 unrelated bloodlines, all from Patrick Nabors. It was my impression that the parents of the spotted were wc's, and that they often create spotted offspring. The three retics are going to be kept in a group. Thanks.

rmelancon wrote:
Let's go with the assumption then that spotted and non spotted are not from separate wild populations so we are not "hybridizing" by breeding non spotted and spotted together. Actually I just noticed that someone separated them into morphs on the site. Hmm... well again for our purposes we are going to put them all into the "standard" category, because the system does not allow you to mix morphs. 

Let's also assume that Patricks animals are all WC or "root" bloodlines. This may not be the case and in the production system I will have to work with him and other hobbyists to build out the family trees correctly. But for test purposes I have created three bloodlines for Patricks retics and here are three keys to add animals to your reticulatus registration: 

First bloodline animal - <key deleted> 
Second bloodline animal - <key deleted>
Third from spotted line - <key deleted>

So first create yourself a registration for D. reticulatus standard then click the Manage button for the new row you just created. Select the option to "Add CB Registered Animal" and cut and paste one of the keys from above into the registration key field. Click the "Add new animal" button. Animal should be added. Then repeat for the other two animals keys. Now you can select the "View Lineage" tab, click Load tree and see the lineage of the bloodline. 

Let me know if you have problems. 

Robb

Jordan B wrote:
Ok, I added 3 animals. It doesn't say which line is the spotted one, is there a way to see that? Thanks. 

Nevermind, got that. But, how do I know exactly which frog to label as which line. For example, one of the retics is from line WCxGH, the other is JMxRM. So, how do I know which is which from patricks line?
Jordan

rmelancon wrote:
Well, this is basically a test so I set all three of the animals as F1's from three separate lines owned by Pat Nabors. If you go to the registration I setup for him you can see the three lines and their codes. 

To accurately represent the tree, WC, GH, HM and RM would all be registered in the system and would have entered their lines and unless WC animals they would have to know where their animals came from and those animals would have to be registered. They all would have generated keys that you would use to create your animals. Then when you look at the tree you would see which animal went to each of the lines. 

Again, this is all just test data, but these are the kinds of things that will have to be dealt with when the system goes live. In order to accurately represent lines, all of the animals in the family tree will have to be registered in the system, and in the order of WC parents first then siblings and on down the line. If somewhere in that line there is an unknown, where one animals parent is unknown, the line can't be accurately represented and would not be able to be entered into the system. 


Robb


----------



## josh_r (Feb 4, 2005)

http://www.caudata.org/uscr/ has a registry system for salamanders that may also be useful in designing your system. havnt really looked at it much myself.


----------

