# Anyone know about imports of other rare frogs?



## Arklier (Mar 1, 2004)

I was thinking about the pumillio imports, and it crossed my mind that similar projects might be in the works for other darts that we don't see often. Stuff like histros, mysteriosus, lamasi, truncatus, castaneoticus, various epipedobates, ect. Has anyone heard of anything?


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## Catfur (Oct 5, 2004)

A lot of these (Peruvian frogs) are being worked on, see INIBICO. And the political situation in Colombia (Civil War) is what is preventing anything from coming out of Colombia. I have no clue about Ecuador, Venezuala, or the Guyanas.


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## EDs Fly Meat (Apr 29, 2004)

*Why do we need imports.*

Why do we need imports?



> lamasi, truncatus, castaneoticus, various epipedobates,


These are all captive bred in the United States.
Dave


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## dmartin72 (Oct 27, 2004)

How many different bloodlines are there of the Standard Lamasi?


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## Arklier (Mar 1, 2004)

*Re: Why do we need imports.*



ED's_Fly_Meat_Inc said:


> Why do we need imports?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Not exactly the most common frogs, are they? And those that are here are a very small slice of the different morphs there are. And there are many epipedobates species that are not available period.


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

The first thing that popped into my head was someone didn't want to wait in line. I don't know if this is the reasoning behind the question, don't flame me, but when asked about some of these species its because its usually rare and they want it now. Kinda sucks.

Most latin american countries no longer allow the exportation of PDFs. Surinam only allows non-dendrobates PDFs out.

If its not easy to get ahold of and was in the hobby over the years (not including the weird pseudo-legal crap from Europe) is usually because the animals are difficult to breed (eggfeeders like histos, lamasi, larger epipeds like trivis, bassleri, etc), or for most breeders they aren't worth breeding because the babies couldn't be given away (truncatus, tricolor, most smaller epipeds). This is usually do to cycles of popularity (truncs and tricolor are excellent examples) and this can actually be the demise of a species in the hobby (azureventris is a great example). This is our own stupidity, and should be learned from, not have us going back and begging for WCs. Other times the animals just are considered ugly and just never get popular (many small epipeds aren't colorful enough to be in much demand, or their CBs aren't colorful).

We have PLENTY of variety of animals in the hobby. Almost all the groups are represented in the US hobby at this point (other than "ugly" epipeds and colostethus), is there actually a NEED to have all of them in the hobby?!


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## bbrock (May 20, 2004)

KeroKero said:


> The first thing that popped into my head was someone didn't want to wait in line. I don't know if this is the reasoning behind the question, don't flame me, but when asked about some of these species its because its usually rare and they want it now. Kinda sucks.
> 
> Most latin american countries no longer allow the exportation of PDFs. Surinam only allows non-dendrobates PDFs out.
> 
> ...


Sing it sister! I agree completely. The thing is that there are a lot of species and morphs that hang by a thread in the U.S. hobby because not enough serious hobbyists are breeding them to insure a stable population. In some cases the species or morph is basically being maintained by only a single person and if that person leaves the hobby or dies, there's another one gone. If everyone is scrambling for stuff we don't already have, then we are going to see a lot of species and morphs blinking in and out of the hobby because the frogs will be spread very thin among the skilled resources available to support them. How many thousands of blue jeans have been imported over the last 20 years and still we have not secured them as captive breeding population in the U.S.

I'm not against importing frogs. But I do worry that importations produce a "flavor of the month" syndrome in the hobby that diverts resources away from establishing long term sustainable captive populations.


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## Arklier (Mar 1, 2004)

I was simply curious about other types of rare frogs coming in. I didn't buy any almirante, and I probably wouldn't buy any of them. I prefer CB animals. Simple curiosity.

As for if there's really a need for at least some level of imports, yes I think there is. I don't want thousands of WC frogs being shipped out, but 0 level of exports isn't good either. Even with frogs that are bred in captivity, the gene pool is very small in some cases. Lots of frogs, but when they all come from the same ten original imports because they were the only ones that lived before there were current advancements in husbandry, eventually there will be problems if people keep breeding them, which I'm sure they will. People rail against line breeding for 'designer frogs', but as someone pointed out, with only three lines of lamasi in the US, you really can't help but line breed.

Would you rather the less well represented frogs or morphs die out completely when their habitat goes bye bye or have at least some in captivity? Look at the azureus for example. By all accounts, their natural habitat is a tiny area. But due to captive breeding, they will never die out (except maybe 'pure blooded frogs' by hybridization, but there's already a topic about that.)


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## geckguy (Mar 8, 2004)

The "flavor of the month syndrome" seems to be the downfall of many species, right now the man creeks and bastis are fairly popular and any one with a few hundred dollars can get a pair, but in a few years people will be scrambling to find them and begging to get on a list for man creeks, just like the blue jeans, I'm sure brent has received numerous wait list requests. Same thing with thumbnails, eventually everybody who wants them will have them, and when they aren't the "hot" thing, people will stop breeding them, and only a few people will have them. It will take longer for that to happen because of smaller clutches, and lower success rates, but I think it will eventually happen. I remember when you couldn't give away certain frogs, tricolors for example, and you were stuck feeding 20+ froglets nobody wanted, now it takes some serious searching to find some. Hopefully people will learn from the past and keep the mancreeks around as I plan to do, along with the unpopular auratus morphs.


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## bbrock (May 20, 2004)

Arklier said:


> Would you rather the less well represented frogs or morphs die out completely when their habitat goes bye bye or have at least some in captivity? Look at the azureus for example. By all accounts, their natural habitat is a tiny area. But due to captive breeding, they will never die out (except maybe 'pure blooded frogs' by hybridization, but there's already a topic about that.)


I could tell you were just asking an innocent question which is why I didn't joing the thread at first. But since it had already become philosophical, then I thought I would phlosophize. But now it has gotten even more philosophical so here goes some more. First, I don't see that zero imports would exactly be bad for the hobby. It's already been said, we already have an enormous selection of frogs and many are not yet secure. So the prospect of no more imports does not really bother me at all. But I will repeat that I'm not against imports. But I view them as a luxury that the hobby should use at a pace it can absorb. We don't want to become like the rape and pillage orchidists of days past. There are also several straw man arguments that are used to defend imports as a necessity or at least not bad. Again, done right I don't think they are bad but.... New importations rarely help us bolster gene pools of captive lines. I'll just say it. The hobby in general are idiots when it comes to knowing what is a line and what is not. Without location data which is still hard to get, we treat every new import as a "line" even if it is quite probably that they were all collected from the same place. How many wild populations did these three "lines" of standard lamasii come from? One? Three? Who knows? Also, why does having only one or a few lines in the hobby mean they lack genetic diversity? A single "line" could be founded from thousands of animals. So the only way a new import can help add genetic stock to captive lines is if we can confidently link the new imports and the captive line back to the same wild population.

The argument that it is better to bring the frogs in captivity than have them go extinct in the wild is old as dirt and is full of holes. First, not all PDF that are rare in the hobby are rare in the wild. Not all PDF are in danger of going extinct. Second, the way we collect, import, and maintain PDF in the hobby does NOTHING for preserving the frogs as a wild species. By this I mean that the frogs in our vivaria are not EVER going to be used to restore populations of frogs to the wild. I could fill several pages with what is required to establish a captive breeding population for conservation. In fact, I have in the past. But for now, I'll just say that our hobby lines do not come close to meeting the criteria needed to establish a conservation gene pool and fresh imports aren't going to help that. Finally, there is the argument I made in my last post. Flooding the hobby with a plethora of new morphs and species can actually work against getting the frogs we already have solidly established.

So I hope we never see a flood tide of new types of frogs coming into the hobby. What I would rather see is a very slow but steady rate of introductions of new types. That way the selection in the hobby can grow along with the hobby itself. What I would like to see is for new types to come in at about the same rate as new froggers develop the experience and skills needed to care for them. Too many frogs have become popular and then disapeared in the hobby because people wanted to move on to something new. New is not bad but if everybody is trying to get something that nobody else has, then there is a problem.


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## josh_r (Feb 4, 2005)

i really could care less about new frogs comming in at this point. there are so many gorgeous frogs already here. i have a huge selection to choose from already! i dont have a huge collection and there are many others out there that dont as well. us newbies have alot to choose from right now.... importation of new species or anything for that matter has not crossed my mind. i visited greg and amanda sihler and after seeing everything they have... i could never ask for new species or imports cause i know there are alot of other experienced keepers just like them holding the hobby together. i thank all the people working hard to keep this hobby going and for sharing all the knowledge they have learned though trial and error, hard work and dedication. i would rather support this than importation. if people are wanting to bring new stuff to the hobby.. work on successfully reproducing the rare frogs we already have that arnt yet available.i would work on that before getting new species into the u.s.


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## Guest (Mar 26, 2005)

Brent, could you post a list of sp/morphs that aren't yet established in the us?


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## bbrock (May 20, 2004)

Lydia said:


> Brent, could you post a list of sp/morphs that aren't yet established in the us?


There's no way I can come close to a complete list but here are some that come to mind. All pumilio morphs except bastimentos and bri bri, seem to still be unestablished as stable captive populations in the U.S. The green Shepard's Island and the Almirante/Man Creek seem to be well on their way to being established. There are several other morphs in the hobby but not enough breeding to be sure we will still have them in another 5-10 years. There are also granuliferus, lehmani, histrionicus, several epips that are in U.S. collections but not bred in numbers anywhere close to insuring they will have a future here. And then there are new comers like P. lugubris that should be pretty easy to establish but there hasn't been enough time yet to guarantee their future in the U.S. It took several attempts at importing terribilis and galactonotus from Europe before we had actually established strong populations here. Then there are frogs like E. tricolor and D. imitator that have gone through cycles where they were one of the most commonly frogs kept and several years later, people who want them are having a hard time finding them. Vents went through a similar phase. Luckily these have all made a resurgence but there was a point when I think these once common frogs could have blinked out. It's this last phenomena that really worries me the most with respect to new imports. I think we need to have a minimum of three long-term serious breeders keeping and breeding each species and morph we want to maintain and along with that should be at least another 6 hobbiests who are having good luck breeding each of these species or morphs. Most people only stay in the hobby 2-3 years which is why I specify the 3 long-term hobbyists. There are only so many skilled hobbyists (and here I'm not saying that only the long-term folks are skilled) available to breed the different types of frogs and each hobbyist is limited to keeping only so many types. Right now I think the hobby is doing okay for the most part because it has grown enough to mostly handle the capacity for most of the types we now have. But I do worry that too many imports too fast would add more types to the hobby than there are skilled froggers who can maintain them.


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## Guest (Mar 26, 2005)

Excellent post Brent,
I know firsthand how hard it can be trying to find frogs that haven't really been established in the hobby.It took me about 11 months from the time I tried getting Shepherds Island pums until I had some.
I sure would hate to see the Man Creeks and Chiraquis be that hard to find in the coming years.
Mark W.


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## bbrock (May 20, 2004)

Mark Wilson said:


> Excellent post Brent,
> I know firsthand how hard it can be trying to find frogs that haven't really been established in the hobby.It took me about 11 months from the time I tried getting Shepherds Island pums until I had some.
> I sure would hate to see the Man Creeks and Chiraquis be that hard to find in the coming years.
> Mark W.


You mean like blue jeans are now? They could be bought for $25 at local pet shops 10 years ago.


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## siples (Aug 14, 2004)

*Regina bloodlines*

What concerns me is the possible unavailability of different bloodlines of Reginas, I got mine from Patrick, and while I have a pair but have been searching for another bloodline, all the replys on Reginas have resulted in them coming from Patrick. These are fantastic animals from a fantastic breeder I would just like to diversify a little bit.
Thanks Kieth


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## bbrock (May 20, 2004)

*Re: Regina bloodlines*



siples said:


> What concerns me is the possible unavailability of different bloodlines of Reginas, I got mine from Patrick, and while I have a pair but have been searching for another bloodline, all the replys on Reginas have resulted in them coming from Patrick. These are fantastic animals from a fantastic breeder I would just like to diversify a little bit.
> Thanks Kieth


Just out of curiosity, how large of a range to Regina come from in the wild? I don't do tincs so am very poor about even being able to identify morphs, much less know anything about their origins. But whenever I hear about mulitple blood lines of a single morph from a species that shows morphological diversity across its geographical range, I become very skeptical about the validity of splitting blood lines. I'm not saying the Regina lines are not legit, but if they aren't, then the gene pools may be unnecessarily narrow.


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## siples (Aug 14, 2004)

*Regina bloodlines*

bbrock,
Thats a very good question, I had read somewhere that they were found near the town of Regina( go figure ) in which recent bridge construction jeapordized their habitat and they were feared possibly extinct. Don't quote me on this, if anybody has different info please help me out. I can assume then that their range was limited, so do we have a narrow gene pool to begin with? The same thought comes to mind with a friend who has a number of the almost spotless violet Azureus, he plans to breed within the same line to hopefully produce that same color. I'm not saying that is wrong, would you line breed or diversify the bloodline and hopefully get some babys that show that violet color?
Just some thoughts. 
Maybe Patrick could shed some light on this subject, I'm sure he is better qualified then I am.


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## bbrock (May 20, 2004)

*Re: Regina bloodlines*



siples said:


> bbrock,
> Thats a very good question, I had read somewhere that they were found near the town of Regina( go figure ) in which recent bridge construction jeapordized their habitat and they were feared possibly extinct. Don't quote me on this, if anybody has different info please help me out. I can assume then that their range was limited, so do we have a narrow gene pool to begin with? The same thought comes to mind with a friend who has a number of the almost spotless violet Azureus, he plans to breed within the same line to hopefully produce that same color. I'm not saying that is wrong, would you line breed or diversify the bloodline and hopefully get some babys that show that violet color?
> Just some thoughts.
> Maybe Patrick could shed some light on this subject, I'm sure he is better qualified then I am.


I would say that if it is fairly certain that all of the Regina come from the same wild population, then they should all be mixed together in captivity. Where you have problems is with things like pumilio where very similar looking morphs pop up in multiple isolated populations. Then it is hard to know which population the frogs belong to.

With respect to azureus. I'm very opinionated and outspoken but don't really want to single out any individual as right or wrong. But I will say this, all of the azureus in this country came from the same wild population. Their history is well known. If the goal is to maintain wild type frogs that have the same diversity and appearance as the azureus in the wild, then purposely breeding spotless purple frogs togther moves you away from the target of wild type frogs and into the realm of selective breeding. I like wild type frogs so if I had a frog that threw a morph like that, it would get treated no different than any other frog with respect to breeding.


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## Arklier (Mar 1, 2004)

Also notice that I never specified imports from where. There are frogs that are imported from Europe. :?


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## bbrock (May 20, 2004)

Arklier said:


> Also notice that I never specified imports from where. There are frogs that are imported from Europe. :?


Ah yes, the laundered frogs!


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## dmartin72 (Oct 27, 2004)

Brent,

If you have a moment, could you elaborate on your statement? I am very interested in the state of PDFs in Europe. It is fascinating to see the differences between the US and Europe. How are things handled over there in terms of hybrids, line breeding, records and of course new imports (or smuggling).


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## bbrock (May 20, 2004)

dmartin72 said:


> Brent,
> 
> If you have a moment, could you elaborate on your statement? I am very interested in the state of PDFs in Europe. It is fascinating to see the differences between the US and Europe. How are things handled over there in terms of hybrids, line breeding, records and of course new imports (or smuggling).


Yes, you guessed it. They smuggle a lot of frogs, particularly the Germans and then we import the "legitimate" frogs over here.


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## dmartin72 (Oct 27, 2004)

"legitimate" That's funny (not really). :? It sounds like money laundering, only with frogs. The more countries a frog touches, the more legal they become.


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## RSines (Feb 15, 2004)

Sorta... but take Brazil for example. It doesn't matter where you route those frogs, their legal status remains the same. Well, at least as far as Brazil is concerned.

-Richard


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## bbrock (May 20, 2004)

RSines said:


> Sorta... but take Brazil for example. It doesn't matter where you route those frogs, their legal status remains the same. Well, at least as far as Brazil is concerned.
> 
> -Richard


There are other examples like that. As far as I've heard, Surinam never relinquished ownership fo the azureus they allowed to be exported and then the azureus got into the hobby by mistake. I've also heard that no legal exports of terribilis have ever been made but can't substantiate that. I've also heard of other frogs that "were never exported legally" and yet they show up on the USFWS stats for legal imports. You can get CITES permits to import captive bred frogs so they can be a "legal import" but still have strings attached like the Brazil thing. Unfortunately fact and fantasy get all mixed up so it is often hard to tell what is legal and what is not without doing some detective work. And then, of course, there are these smuggled frogs that get mixed in with truly legitimate captive populations.


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## Arklier (Mar 1, 2004)

There are legal frogs that are exported from Europe. Many more people are involved in the dart hobby over there, and everyone oohs and aahs over their setups. I hope that every single frog sold in Europe is not a WC smuggled from South America. I remember hearing that one of the people in WADS travels to Germany every year and expressed his willingness to bring back darts as long as the proper paperwork was filled out.

As for possibly 'illegal' but common darts mentioned such as azureus and terribilis, darts are hardly the only animal that this has happened to. Carpet pythons and bearded dragons both appeared in the herp trade AFTER Australia had closed all animal exports.


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## bbrock (May 20, 2004)

Arklier said:


> There are legal frogs that are exported from Europe.


Yes but what I'm saying is that just because they can be legally imported to the U.S. doesn't mean the ancestors were obtained legally. You can get CITES permits to import captive bred frogs. The permit process is only going to catch illegal frogs if they are a species that has never been legally imported. This means that something like granuliferus could be smuggled into Germany, captive bred, and the offspring would be eligible for a CITES permit to export because other granuliferus have been legally imported before.

I recently heard some first hand accounts of rape and pillage practices being used by smugglers in South America. It makes me reluctant to even support European imports which is sad because, like you said, there are many legitimate frogs and froggers over there.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Another method by which the frogs are in effect laundered is that if the Zoos do not want the frogs then they are released to certain hobbyists. 
This then legalizes all of the smuggled frogs of that species as everyone with smuggled frogs claims that theirs are offspring or other descendents of the frogs released to the hobbysists. 
Then the smuggled frogs and/or their descendents are available for paper work to export them. 
There are rumors that this has been used to export freshly smuggled frogs. 

Ed


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## biocmp (Mar 7, 2006)

Does brazil still have a ban on exporting animals from their country?


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Yes. They do not export anything for the pet trade. Anything that is exported for Zoos and other institutions and thier progeny remains the property of the Brazilian goverment. 

Ed


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## dragonfrog (Feb 16, 2006)

As part of this post, the Blue Jeans is mentioned a few times. This is a PDF that I have always been interested in but I have yet to hear of a single sole that has one, or at least a breeding pair. Does anyone out there have them?


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## biocmp (Mar 7, 2006)

I'm sure you could find some man creeks that look just like them. and they are much more common


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## Roadrunner (Mar 6, 2004)

ha ha, well no laughing matter, but. i sold my last 2 pairs of blue jeans after the last import about 3-4 years back maybe, thinking i could get more. just like histos and lehmanni used to be about 3 years or more before i got into the hobby, i think i paid about $25 each for them, and then they dissappeared..... i have not seen 1 for sale since, other than the 3 mark had up. they just never brought them in since. i dont know why.


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## geckguy (Mar 8, 2004)

There are people with blue jeans, not that many, but there are a few. The reason you don't hear about them is, they would be bombarded with wait list requests.


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

Pretty much all the eggfeeders in the hobby with the exception of a few pumilio morphs don't really make it past the initial importation... a lot of them die, they are pretty tough charges, really, really hard to breed successfully in many cases, and just as hard, if not harder to raise their young to breed another generation...

the nicaraguan blue jeans brought in in the late 90s basically disapeared except for a couple dozen (that I know of) indivuduals who are in the hands of expert keepers. These keepers generally know each other and are working hard to figure these animals out and get these frogs breeding more... meaning those with animals already get priority over those who don't. They might have a fighting chance of being established in the hobby if things keep going the way they are going... better chance than the other eggfeeders.

If you like the look, go for the much easier man creeks. Some of the brigher blue legged ones look very similar.

Aaron... I'm confused by your mention of blue jeans imported "3-4 years back"... the "blue jeans" imported around that time period were the man creek/almerante which were mistakenly labled blue jeans when they came in... after which the hobby played name games because the panama red frogs with blue legs were definately not the nicaraguan true blue jeans imported in the late 90s (almost 10 years ago...)


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## Roadrunner (Mar 6, 2004)

was it that long ago? wow that long ago. ya about 7-8 years ago i guess. damn, i guess since ive been working on the house and stuff i lost track of time(a couple years worth). seems like only 3-4 years ago. sorry.


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

lol, yeah it feels like that to me sometimes too. Then I talk to someone who has been in the hobby that amount of time and they're like... what are you talking about. I think we need to get out of the house more when that happens....


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## Roadrunner (Mar 6, 2004)

word!!! i think i`ll do that tonite. i used to when i lived in the city but now that i`m in the country when i get out of the house it`s just around the house and there`s no one here but us frogs, in and out. need more human contact so the days dont just hop by!!!


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