# hybrid picture



## stevendart14 (Feb 21, 2005)

Do anyone know of a website where there is a lec and AZUREUS cross picture? I seen it ounce but lost it.


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## christina hanson (Feb 16, 2004)

It's on Tracy Hicks' website.

http://www.tracyhicks.com/Kfrogs.htm

It's down at the bottom. 

I produced those frogs by accident, they were in a large display tank at my work, proven pairs of leucs and azureus to boot. The female azureus found the leuc male irresistable. After that I also ended up with an azureus auratus cross (same female azureus). Needless to say I never took eggs from that tank again.

Darn cool looking frogs though.


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## Guest (Mar 22, 2005)

Christina, could I show that picture of the hybrid frog leuco+azureus in the Canadian dart frog forum??????

If you want me to put your name in that picture I forsure would tell them to do soo. 
Thanks


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## markpulawski (Nov 19, 2004)

*hybrid*

I understand the Azuremelas is a delicate frog of rare beauty. I have been on the waiting list for years!
Mark


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## christina hanson (Feb 16, 2004)

Hello,

It isn't my photo, so you would have to ask Tracy. I would take one for you but they were passed on as pets to another folk years ago (they were all females (4) ) BTW. 

While I was a bit embarassed to produce it, even way back then hybrids were a no no, it is nice to see some of the combos that can happen.... 

While we're on the subject, by far the favorite frog in my display tank at work is that azureus auratus hybrid. Walls poo poo'd it, but that's a pretty frog. It also has a personality that's a cross of the two parents, so you actually see it out and about. Not condoning hybridizing even though I did it, but it is interesting to see genetics at work.


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## stevendart14 (Feb 21, 2005)

Thanx,
In a way it look similar to the Oelemarie morph. I was thinking of a program for hybrids. Instead of people destroying perfectly good eggs,tadpoles, frogs I would use them for research. Nothing special just how they would interact with certain gecko and other species. To help with these questions of what animals can coexist with what. But I don't want the chance of people seeing these crossed morphs and end up like leopard geckos. Such a good hobby turned into what new cross you can make (blizzard-carrottailetc).


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## Guest (Mar 22, 2005)

> I understand the Azuremelas is a delicate frog of rare beauty. I have been on the waiting list for years!
> Mark


Man, do you not appreceate what were dealing with here. Allthough PDF's may not be endangered themselfs, thier habitat surely is. Why piss in the geene pool. Dont degrade us to the level of Dog breeders please.


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## Guest (Mar 22, 2005)

> Quote:
> I understand the Azuremelas is a delicate frog of rare beauty. I have been on the waiting list for years!
> Mark
> 
> ...



Wow, are you seriously that dense? He was joking around, its called sarcasm, give him a break. 
Now that I got that dont think im trying to be mean, I just dont like it when people make crazy comments like that to a joke.


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## markpulawski (Nov 19, 2004)

*Hybrid*

Yes I do appreceate.......appricte.........approveate..............the VERY (yes i am yelling) nature of this situation. Thank you for noticing.
Mark


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## stevendart14 (Feb 21, 2005)

Man, these forums do be geting a little heated when it come to hybrid dart frogs. :shock:


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## Guest (Mar 22, 2005)

Thats ok, i dont really know you guys, and well, sarcasm doesn't come across too well unless youve got a smiley. May i suggest the 'roll eye's' icon for such witt in future, if only to avoid anyone reading verbatum gettin the wrong idea. 

Im glad it was a joke, infact, im PLEASED it was a joke as it goes to show that good ethics is important.

Personally, if i had produced that frog, i would have taken it upin myself to unproduce it. C02 or something maybee. But thats just me, id hate to think that somewhere allong the line it could breed back inuntentionally.

Sorry peeps, no harm done.


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## elmoisfive (Dec 31, 2004)

markpulawski said:


> I understand the Azuremelas is a delicate frog of rare beauty. I have been on the waiting list for years!
> Mark


Mark...thanks for the humor...it was too off the wall to be taken as a serious comment...added a bit of levity to a subject that inspires quite a bit of impassioned commentary.



mouse said:


> Personally, if i had produced that frog, i would have taken it upin myself to unproduce it. C02 or something maybee. But thats just me, id hate to think that somewhere allong the line it could breed back inuntentionally.


I'm not sure I could bring myself to actually euthanize a frog simply because I had mistakenly allowed a hybrid to come into the world. I would make very sure it never had a chance to propagate itself. But I understand your concern...I suppose the best policy is species separation to avoid the problem in the first place.

Bill


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## christina hanson (Feb 16, 2004)

You know guys, this hybrid was produced many years ago. At that point it was the "understanding" that if you had pairs of frogs that were established in tanks hybridization would not occur. So that myth was busted, as they say on TV. However, these hybrids were isolated from other frogs, breeding was never an issue as they were all females. Also, as I stated above, even though I still have the community tank (it's very popular at the college) no eggs are ever pulled. I absolutely agree with you that hybrids should not be sold as new morphs or even as oddities. Todd and I have always tried to delineate the lines of our frogs and understand their value.

Mark has been to our house several times and I'm sure he has seen this hybrid. Mark covets everything we have, of course, like our cat and Sugar Ram the Woody. I guess his incredibly subtle humor got the best of you.

As for euthanization of frogs, that's a whole new topic, but no, I would not euthanize these animals for my own carlessness, I have enough confidence in my own self control to not offer these up for sale as a new morph.

Christina


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## markpulawski (Nov 19, 2004)

*Hybrid*

I covet a basement so i can have a frog collection again!!! It's great to see such passion in this hobby, fortunately most of us do the right thing. I am on a waiting list for one of Todd and Christina's cat's as well as the elusive and quickly aging Azuremelas! I would settle for a green Bastimentos though (I've always had a generous nature).
Mark


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## Guest (Mar 23, 2005)

> As for euthanization of frogs, that's a whole new topic, but no, I would not euthanize these animals for my own carlessness, I have enough confidence in my own self control to not offer these up for sale as a new morph.


But your allready one mistake closer, and only one mistake away. The point in not allowing these morphs to be produced, is so they dont get the chane to damage the geene pool. By allowing one to live, who knows???, and by being the creator of that animal, its your responsiblity.

Id just hate to have my name in some future nature journal as the guy who fugged up dart frogs.

Just look at the mess they made of Orangutans, and these were PRO'S, and it was actually the conservatin effort itself that's destroyed them. 

your choice, but its a weak decision. (not that thats really whats being discussed here, but i thought id offer my feelings)


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## stevendart14 (Feb 21, 2005)

In order for anyone to call a new morph I am pretty sure it would be looked into first. And you would need multiple bloodlines of that type of frog even to make it a potiential problem. Since still many people believe in not producing hybrids. Inbreeding for long generations will destroy the frog immune system(and other stuff)IMO. :roll:


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## Arklier (Mar 1, 2004)

mouse said:


> But your allready one mistake closer, and only one mistake away. The point in not allowing these morphs to be produced, is so they dont get the chane to damage the geene pool. By allowing one to live, who knows???, and by being the creator of that animal, its your responsiblity.


Yeah, and allowing homosexuals to marry leads us flying down a slippery slope where the human race dies out because there's no straight people left to have kids. 

These hybrids have obviously been around for a long time, if they were made when it was considered OK to have pairs of different species in the same tank and they wouldn't interbreed. These particular hybrids haven't screwed up the hobby yet, have they?


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## christina hanson (Feb 16, 2004)

Well in this case the frogs were all female, so I don't think they've contributed to the demise of the hobby. Franky I thought that after the cross occurred the responsible thing to do was to get it documented so there would never be an questions, and even if capable they never would have been bred.

I really do respect your militicism on the issue of hybrids, but I think you're confusing my intentions. 

To reiterate, they were proven pairs in a 90 gallon display tank at a college, at that point (1996) the prevailing thought was paired frogs would mate with their "own". Also, these were leucs and azureus, not tincs and azureus. That in fact turned out to be false and no more eggs were ever taken from that tank. I do not believe in euthanasia unless the animal is suffering. I hope we have not lost sight of the fact that these are pets and we have to take responsibility for what we produce. 

Christina


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## stevendart14 (Feb 21, 2005)

Yes, 
This is what I was thinking. I couldn't kill a perfectly healthy egg, tadpole. or frog. Thats why I wanted to have a program for hybrids due to the fact that many people will not and can not kill a frog. This was not intentionable and was handled the right way I see no problem. A few frogs messing up the whole hobby. :?


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## Guest (Mar 23, 2005)

*hybrids*

id somebody keeps two different species in the same tank and they cross breed its their responsibility to care for them and their offspring. theres obvious moral implications of killing a frog which you are responsibel for just because its a hybrid and i dont know about in the USA but here in britain it would be illegal.


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## markpulawski (Nov 19, 2004)

*hybrids*

Hey mouse you need to lighten up, this was done 10 years ago by one of the most experienced breeders in the US. NOTHING negative came of it and it was reponsibly handled. It is JUST AN INTERSETING PICTURE!!!! You need to worry about your buddies from Europe continuing to export Chyrtid on a regular basis rather than 1 display tank.
Mark


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## *GREASER* (Apr 11, 2004)

I was at Black Jungle a week or so ago and they had a couple very iteresting hybrids. They had two froglets that were produced from a green pumilio and a nancy.


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## Guest (Mar 24, 2005)

Eh? hybrid? Morphs? Inbred? outbred? Your all very sensitive to the nature of the hobby. Things to think about......the negative side of the hybrids is that the pure gene goes to $hit. Or so we think. But so does iresponsible breeding with no change in the bloodlines or encouargeing removal of these beauties from their home to be sold to our fetishly filthy habits as collectors. Why do we love them so? because they are beautiful, and unique. If they were all the same color, and khaki green like pea soup, then there would not be so many of us here on DendroBoard.com Lets face it, some of the hybrids are interesting to look at, and I challenge anyone to say different. Maybe all hybrids should be sent to a central frog only zoo with a 100,000 gal vivarium for them to live out their lives and see what come out of it. Maybe a breed that cures cancer, or aids. Or one that has the stars and stripes pattern on it. Or maybe a pattern that resembles the virgin mary. How much do you think that one would sell for.... :wink:


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## tkavan01 (Mar 17, 2004)

i'm willing to bet if ebay allowed it, that the stars and stripes frog would be bought by that online casino that buys all that junk for about 25k, temppting as it may be i won't be working on breeding one of those in the near future...
also sign me up for the 100,000 gallon viv project, what is that 380,000 litres for our european friends


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## Guest (Mar 24, 2005)

LOL


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## Guest (Mar 24, 2005)

Yea ok, im overreacting, so what's a few GM crops going to do, its not like itys the end of the world or anything. :roll:


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## Guest (Mar 24, 2005)

BTW, there are no natural Oragutans in the world left for this very same reason. 

Hybridise away, but there are plently of species where something like this would not be seen as irresponsible. I know it may not be your frog that escapes back into the wild, or even the offspring of your frog, but if it did, and it could be traced back to that frog, and it was you that created it, you could be the best Dartfrog breeder in the world and it wouldn't matter, it would still be your responsibility. 

You could potentially introduce an animal that could outcompete, and eventually wipe out native poulations.

But yea, if you think their 'pretty', go ahead, whatever turns you on. Wouldn't want to infringe on your fun.


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## stevendart14 (Feb 21, 2005)

Hmm,
I don't think that hybrids would immediately start to breed with normal frogs due to the fact that the only reason why these hybris breed was because of constant contact. Yet it might be be possible but I think most frogs prefer there own species.IMO There is enough breeders that is against hybrids right now.This pure hobby can last at least 10 more years without someone making hybrids and selling them. Most likely longer if more newbies is informed on the topic like me. I think theres a very low chance of any frogs being able to go back to south america or other places darts is from. Poison arrow frogs are abundant in all different colors and patterns to with most people temptation to breed them. Most hybrids not including dogs began because most people had a few different colors and wanted new ones. Such as leopard geckos, not much variety. Finding new morphs in a great thing in the leopard gecko hobby. Thats why I can in the dart frog hobby, no brain busting thoughts on how I can try and make each morph better or a new one.


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## stevendart14 (Feb 21, 2005)

Sorry for my poor syntax in a hurry. :lol:


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## Guest (Mar 24, 2005)

But with Gecko's and snakes your looking for different things within a species you can breed out, for example, Hypomenalism, Albenism, Pinstripes, red eyes, etc etc.

Your not inter species breeding. 

Your never creating a new species, just developing rare morphs so they become more common. 

And with regards to wild populations, they are small, localised, and in constant contact, because its the HABITAT which is threatened, not the species, so infact, their close proximity will only become closer.

You go mix a Tinc with a Leuc and produce a monster Tinc. Id say that frog would have a huge advantage over its comeptitors, literally.

But as i said, thats just my opinion, nothing more. People will do whatever they want, and allways do. And inevitagbly mess up at one point or another.

Lets not degrade these frogs to being 'pretty' trinkets whose only value is in the colour of their skin. There's enough people killing marine fish out there because they want a 'pretty' Dory or Nemo for their Hagan Nano. I would have hoped theat PDF's would have avoided the hype, seems not.


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## StevenBonheim (Feb 22, 2004)

Hey all,
I didn’t want to get into this thread, mostly because I don’t have much to add, but has anyone considered that this hybrid is probably sterile?


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## Will (Feb 15, 2004)

[Disclaimer: opinions are written by someone who clones fruit flies and uses humor without warning... I also apologize for the hyphens I don’t usually use so many]

Perhaps some dark keepers think in the back of their mind that their darts might be called upon to repopulate depleted wild populations, but it not going to happen. The only way a hybrid is getting into the wild is deliberately, either by someone within South America purposefully hybridizing and releasing, or by some demented reverse smuggling of hybrids. 



> And with regards to wild populations, they are small, localised, and in constant contact, because its the HABITAT which is threatened, not the species, so infact, their close proximity will only become closer.


I would contend that habitat destruction is causing even further isolation of populations. Frogs, as far as I’m aware, are not migratory. Habitat destruction is causing the direct loss of species, and creating ‘islands’ of populations which are physically separated through deforestation and development. If anything, further morph diversity would be expected and not hybridization.



> You go mix a Tinc with a Leuc and produce a monster Tinc. Id say that frog would have a huge advantage over its comeptitors, literally.


Hybrids do not by definition have a competitive advantage, the Azuremelas may be larger, but it’s lost much of its distinctive colouring possibly leaving it open to higher rates of predation. Additionally, if colour and pattern are a determination of mate selection, it may have a hard time finding mates (which way would an Azuremelas swing, leucs or azureus?, maybe we could start a poll). 


Is there a minority who would like to produce and keep hybrids, yes. I don’t see this as a ethical concern. If that is what you wish, go for it, but be honest, don’t call a hybrid a new morph. If you like hybrids enough to produce them, have the balls to call them what they are. 

Looking at this from a macro level, genes or the gene pool don’t ‘care’ about hybridizing, they just ‘want’ to propagate (a little Dawkins for you). That azureus thought the leuc was fine and worth pulling, so she didn’t ‘care’ about hybridization. Crossing F4, F5, F6…, isin’t so hot for diversity, but it does keep a pure line. What we are striving for is keeping the natural status quo as it stands presently. Diversity happens in nature, it takes a long time as it usually involves isolation, but it happens. Humans, acting like a funny looking land bridge, tend to speed things up, by hybridizing (almost like backwards engineering). One could argue that you are reuniting genes and traits which have been separated over time (some base pairs may be different, but you remember the good times don’t you?). You could also take keeping darts to a ridiculous level and only keep the most ‘primitive’ morph of tinc (whatever that would be), and not the Johnny-come-lately morphs (whatever that would be) which were freakishly isolated by some event. 

I feel that the hybrid issue is a cultural issue, dart ‘hobbyist’ culture that is. There is preoccupation with nature within the dart community, of which mouse is a testament to. People want natural morphs, and even more so, want specific collection data if possible. There is acute attention paid to creating micro habitats, even as far as self sustaining ecosystems (BenE’s work). The majority of the community feels passionately about these elements of keeping darts, and that is likely why people are drawn towards keeping dart in the first place. As natural species and natural setups dominate the culture of dart keeping, this value will likely persist.


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## stevendart14 (Feb 21, 2005)

Thats what I thought that people want, a piece of the rainforest in there home and a hybrid isn't a part of it. They want a natural frog in a mimic natural habitat. If hybrids was starting to come into the hobby it would be very hard to call it a new morph. Multiple questions, where was the frog collected from,around what features, and more complicated questions that would instantly show this frog as being a hybrid. To many people that are looked up to don't believe in hybrids. I am sure that this hobby can withstand the teptation of producing a hybrid.IMO


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## Arklier (Mar 1, 2004)

I think most average people just want a pretty frog. I'm not talking about the people on this board, but I do believe that hybridization is inevitable. After what has happened to ball pythons and leopard geckos, do you really think that the people responsible will show any kind of restraint once they decide to switch to darts?


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## markpulawski (Nov 19, 2004)

*hybrids*

As far as I know hybrids have never been commercially viable, as a matter of fact I don't believe anyone on this forum would buy a hybrid for any reason and any "accidents" usually end on a display only status. As long as hybrids have zero commercial value this situation should be able to police itself.
On second thought mouse ....kick up a storm....the controversy is fun and keeps it interesting.
Mark


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## snmreptiles (Feb 26, 2004)

> But with Gecko's and snakes your looking for different things within a species you can breed out, for example, Hypomenalism, Albenism, Pinstripes, red eyes, etc etc.
> 
> Your not inter species breeding.
> 
> Your never creating a new species, just developing rare morphs so they become more common.


NOT TRUE, It's actually kind of a funny thing...I have always looked down on mixing species in snakes, Hell for that fact we keep "Locale" specific species of Rosy Boas, and Grey banded Kingsnakes. Recently we got in a trio of hybrids...Creamsicle corns. They are BEAUTIFUL, and are as vigorous of eaters as I have ever seen. What I finally realized is that our "pets" are never going to be re released. Having that said, would I ever hybridize PDF, absolutely NOT, for the simple matter that I have seen pics of the crosses and they aren't near as appealing as the Wild variations.



> After what has happened to ball pythons and leopard geckos, do you really think that the people responsible will show any kind of restraint once they decide to switch to darts?


Don't really know if I should be offended by this comment or not! LOL We "Switched" to darts a while back, and would not ever think of mixing species. HOWEVER, I don't believe either two of the species you mention are hybridized, inbred to hell and back, but not hybrids. Yes there are a few people crossing balls to blood pythons, and angolans...but the vall python morphs are almost purely from wild caught balls brought into the states, then proved out by dedicated breeders. Leo's are line bred for some traits, and some are simple recessive, I don't know of a hybridized leo either. If you look at a wild caught leopard gecko, they are fairly unattractive lizards that not very many would want to keep, however through captive breeding programs, there are tons of different looking leo's out now, and they are among the most popular pet reptile out there. With frogs they are unbelievable in the wild, and people think they are fake until they jump across the tank. I don't think darts will get respect as pets, as they are a "HEY look at my cool frog", not "Wanna hold my lizard". I don't think you have to worry about people making the "Switch" to darts, as most people want something they can take out and hold, not look into a tank (As beautiful as they maybe) at an amazing frog.

My dad said it best "Different strokes for different folks"

MIKE


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

*My 2 cents*

What the hell, might as well drop in my two cents.

The orang comment went over my head (not a primate person).

I believe the talk of leo gex, corn snakes, and ball pythons have a relation to the frog hobby, just not about interspecies breeding, but line breeding for traits. Look at the hype and contriversy of albinos (auratus, vents, tincs) every time pics have popped up. Breeding frogs in an effort to get more albinos (or only albinos) is line breeding just like their reptile friends. "Morphs" of azureus always make me laugh. Fine spot/no spot/sky blue I've seen for sale, and I've seen wanted ads for. These occur naturally in the population (along with large spotted that almost look like new rivers/katuri rivers from the same pair), breeding them together in an effort to get rid of the variation and only get fine spotted, thats line breeding like leopard geckos. Line breeding in many/most reptiles in the hobby is the norm, designer reptiles are in.

Over the years, I've seen more of this pop up. Its not the majority by any means, but its happening. I don't like it, but thats just me. I loved the albino tinc pictures because I thought it was fascinating to watch the black egg/tad go clear/white, becuase its an interesting pigment development question. Would I want one of my own? No, besides my "purist ideals" I just don't think they're pretty (remind me of hopping raw chicken). BUT SOME PEOPLE DO - beauty is in the eye of the beholder. If they just want a pretty thing in a tank, bloodlines and morph and species don't matter. 

I also have to kinda chuckle at the frog tanks being our own "little piece of the rainforest" which is very much an ideal that doesn't mirror the real thing all that well. It fits the ideal of a pretty frog in a pretty tank, but if you've EVER had to sit back and wonder if a nicaraguan/costa rican green and black auratus is aposematic, your tank is overplanted. Most of these guys are leaf litter frogs, not moss frogs lol. My tanks might be ugly as hell, but they might also reflect their natural NICHE in the rainforest better.

Each to his own means and ideals.

And that folks, is my rant of the month. Back to sleep.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

snip "BTW, there are no natural Oragutans in the world left for this very same reason."

Um, I hate to disagree but this is simply not true. There are a lot of hybrid orangs in captivity but there are also plenty of "pure" orangs in captivity (this is why Zoos have studbooks and PMPs) and lots of pure orangs in the wild. As for leopard geckos, the majority of the bloodlines are hybrids. There were several species that are morphologically very similar in the late 70s and through the 80s which were all bred together (mainly as most people didn't know any better) so that most if not all are hybrids. 

At one of the recent Hamburg swaps there was a guy there selling hybrid dart frogs so I would have to say that no one will buy them has been tossed out the window. I would have to say that it would be irresponsible to produce them when a number of dart frog species are not established in the hobby as this runs the risk of further hybridization by animals that look like the nominate species. 

There is a problem with the use of the word "morph" here as this is used in a different context with dart frogs to refer to naturally occuring genetically stable color patterns and/or size that comprises a statistically significant portion of the wild population at that location unlike the use of this word with other species where it refers to color variation that has been stabilized through inbreeding but is not a statistically significant part of the wild population. 


As for the sterile part, I would not want to rely on it as amphibians have shown some unique adaptations in reproduction. Triploid, tetraploid, and octoploid chromosome numbers have all been shown to be fertile. If only a small number of the animals are fertile (which is very possible) then this is sufficient to crash a bloodline. 

Ed


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## Arklier (Mar 1, 2004)

snmreptiles said:


> I don't think you have to worry about people making the "Switch" to darts, as most people want something they can take out and hold, not look into a tank (As beautiful as they maybe) at an amazing frog.
> 
> My dad said it best "Different strokes for different folks"
> 
> MIKE


I'm talking about people who breed said animals for specific traits. If you want examples of real hybrids, you need look no further than king x corns, jungle carpet x diamond carpets, 'carpondros', and various monitor lizards such as argus x flavi or Phillipine x waters, all of which are up in the classifieds at kingsnake.com right now. Same type of animals. Or how about closer to the frog hobby with crossed pac-mans and the non-dart hybrids that appeared right here on Dendroboard not too long ago?

As the hobby becomes more and more popular, more people with less care for bloodlines and species will come in. Remember, not everyone that breeds darts posts or even comes to this board. I think a lot of people just want a pretty frog, and many hybrids are quite pretty, even if we don't think they're as pretty as their parent species. If people can make money by crossing a leuc with an azureus, what makes you think they'd care more about it than crossing a jungle carpet python with a green tree python? While I personally am not for advocating producing dart hybrids and certainly not for selling them, I'm pessimisstic on the question of if it will ever happen and think that denying that it will ever happen is like sticking your head in the sand.


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## Guest (Mar 29, 2005)

<<I loved the albino tinc pictures because I thought it was fascinating to watch the black egg/tad go clear/white, becuase its an interesting pigment development question. Would I want one of my own? No, besides my "purist ideals" I just don't think they're pretty (remind me of hopping raw chicken). BUT SOME PEOPLE DO - beauty is in the eye of the beholder. If they just want a pretty thing in a tank, bloodlines and morph and species don't matter. >>

Hm, I didn't expect to be brought into this conversation as I was reading it, but I guess I am in it now. How did the albinos get compared to hybrids??? I just bought a pair of inferalanis tincs and let them breed so I could get more inferalanis tincs. And that's what I got! What harm is there in that? They are still pure inferalanis. I didn't pick out the parents specifically so I could get albinos and line breed them. This is something that just as easily could have happened in the wild since my pair are offspring of wildcaught parents. Maybe the pair would have only met to produce one clutch, but still. When the first albino froglet morphed, yes, I was really excited. I couldn't believe something this rare was actually happening in front of me. They definately shouldn't die for what they look like, to me that's the same as saying we should kill most of our tadpoles and froglets and only keep a certain percent, because that's what happens in the wild. I don't know of anyone who's willing to do that. :shock: 

And....on a lighter note...."hopping raw chicken?????" I'm glad my babies can't read!


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## Marty (Feb 27, 2004)

That's a great leuking frog. I bet it would look even more interesting if it was crossed with a small european hedgehog.

let me conclude with the rolling of the eyes :roll: a wink :wink: a little bit of shock :shock: and so there is no confusion I will close the tag </sarcasm>





christina hanson said:


> It's on Tracy Hicks' website.
> 
> http://www.tracyhicks.com/Kfrogs.htm
> 
> ...


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## bbrock (May 20, 2004)

WiFrogger34 said:


> Hm, I didn't expect to be brought into this conversation as I was reading it, but I guess I am in it now. How did the albinos get compared to hybrids???


I'm trying hard to stay out of this thread other than giving Christina a hard time privately. I've shot my mouth off enough about why I hate hybrids and selective breeding in the past. Somewhere in the archives there should be a post from me regardling albinos and what I call "white buffalo syndrome". Basically, as long as captive albinos remain as rare as they are in nature and unexpected, then I have no problem with them. They retain the mystique and uniqueness of other rare albinos like white buffalo. Once they are selective bred to produce more albinos, they loose their spiritual value and become just another money making scheme.... like albino cornsnakes. If albino darts follow the way of other herps, then the albino genes get artificially propogated into the general population at abnormally high levels and the genetic character of the general population of captive animals is destroyed. Managed carefully the albinos would do no harm but I have about zero confidence that the hobby as it now stands has the knowledge and willingness to manage such anomolies carefully.


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## Rain_Frog (Apr 27, 2004)

If you're a Xenopus fanatic, you'll hate albinos before you hate hybrids. Many hybrids are sterile, which is a good thing. However, many albino Xenopus are pretty screwed up these days from chronic inbreeding that stretches several decades ago. The CB population of Xenopus are pretty weak too. All my frogs from Nasco had deformities, which was a clear sign of inbreeding. A big bottleneck effect.

My personal stance on hybridization and selective breeding?

Being a long term carnivorous plant enthusiast, you collect as many hybrids and cultivars as well as color morphs. For as many hybrids I have, I have collected many rare morphs, even rarer than most frogs.

Sarracenia are more endangered than dendrobatids, but people freely hybridize them. However, like I said, many CPers focus on working with the rarer species/ subspecies/ morphs just as much.

There is balance between them, but UNLIKE plants, you CANNOT (or, we don't have the technology or demand) to clone animals. You cannot take a "cutting" from a frog and create another frog. Instead, we rely on inbreeding/ selectiveness to order to insure "breeds."

Thus, if you've kept many "fancy animals" (particularly parakeets), it eventually has deleterious effects on the cb population. And due to exploitation for the pet trade, nobody is monitoring the bloodlines if there is ANY attempt to insure healthy, selectively bred stock. 

This leads to another argument. Whether or not we should keep importing WC animals. Regardless of some saying "not until F50 will things appear," I highly recommend looking for different bloodlines. That is the whole reason why I bought my tinc singly. I'm having a problem right now with my tricolor, as Sean Stewart doesn't know where his frogs came from, and since they are much rarer these days, it is very difficult.

I support cross morphs more than I do hybrids and albinos. The thing about hybrids, even if they look different, their behavior could be very unpredictable. There is no telling how an auratus and tinc cross could behave. That could be bad for any other animal living with it. 

Albino animals, while natural in the wild, and there are instances in Europe where there are substantial populations of moor frogs that are albino, I find that more unnatural to selective breed them than hybrids or cross morphs. Albino animals cannot see as well, cannot block UV radiation, etc.

The reason why I support cross morphs more to insure enough genetic variability, and then back cross to have a more uniform animal. This is a last resort, to avoid bottle neck effects in the CB population of dart frogs. 

Do I support "different breeds?" In some ways yes, in other terms, no. The ethical issues I have concern weak genetics, and overexploitation. Eventually, money will concern the breeder more, and constant inbreeding with no bloodline records can take over. Someday, we may have to reintroduce these animals. Domestic animals are not a replacement for the natural, wild occuring animals. 

I do believe, if people were responsible, and had enough genetic stock, that potential "breeds" could be established, but there MUST be some official recognization system, and bloodline history records must be kept. No carnivorous plant cultivar is recognized until it is registered with the International Carnivorous Plant Society. 

But for now, considering that dart frogs cannot be cloned, and considering their precarious position in the wild and that they are relatively "new" in herpetoculture, I support leaving things as they are...

Sincerely,

Rain Frog


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## Guest (Mar 30, 2005)

Maybe its just cause I am new to the dart frogs but when I look at some of the frogs and they look like they are hybrids of other ones.

An example to me some tincs look like they some azeurus traits in them.
It might just be me though

Another thing I keep noticing is you guys talking about keeping records on the frogs like they do for dogs. My only question about this is whats taking so long to start something like that.

please do not take that last comment as being harsh or anything Im just curious


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## geckguy (Mar 8, 2004)

The reason it is taking so long is that is a alot of work, and most people don't have alot of spare time to work on the project.


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## Guest (Mar 30, 2005)

ok.


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## Rain_Frog (Apr 27, 2004)

No harshness at all. There ARE responsible people, but remember, this hobby is still pretty young.

To continue, the focus should not be at the moment, in my opinion, towards crosses, albinos, etc. 

Instead, we should be trying to get as many established bloodlines as possible in order to insure healthy viable populations.

It is absurd to destroy the diverse genetic pool in favor of money, looks, or just to do it...when the rainforest is rapidly being destroyed.

But, once again, this is pro importing Wild caught individuals. Azureus are in a precarious position in the wild, so that may not be an option as they are protected by the Surinam government.

It is true, according to Justin Yeager, that azureus is NOT a separate species, but just a color morph.

A little OT, but Mantella aurantiaca faces a similar problem (well, as far as rarity goes).

I am ambivalent about the whole cross issue.

What makes me a bit more liberal in opinion about crosses, is the fact that many selectively bred animals have appeared, but you don't pay much attention to it. Yellowback Tincs with "no dots," high orange Brazilian cobalts, even fine spot azureus is questionable whether or not it has been selectively bred, or natural. I do not know, perhaps somebody could clarify if that is true or not.

But, once again, somebody could make a new "morph," which is just a cross. However, I find many attempts to sell "rare morphs" of frogs identical to what would happen with frogs being sold under selectively bred pedigrees. The whole race to get the rarest, most beautiful frog continues, regardless if they are natural or not.

It is business instinct though to sell rarer frogs, species/morphs, etc for a higher price. Nothing truly wrong with it though, but I'm making a point that its identical to anybody selling breeds of frogs.\

What I never understood, even to this day, why tricolors and terribilis aren't as popular relative to other dart frogs( not saying tricolor once were). What I would like to say is, doesn't it mean anything, regardless of the morph, even if its a common mint terribilis, that you have THE POISON DART frog? Or, that, regardless if its a Santa Isabel, or the beautiful, royal Moraspunga tricolor, YOU HAVE the frog that produced the potential MORPHINE substitute, 200 TIMES more potent? 

A problem with the registering issue is the fact that some species become popular for a while, nearly disappear due to demand, and then reappear. Making bloodlines and details sketchy. Before breeds were registered, morphs of natural populations must be accounted for. Some are confused over Giant Oranges and Reginas, for example. 

I additionally believe Santa Isabel is really a mutt tricolor of a "santa isabel" complex, which could be linked to the fact there is no authorized registering and enough demand for them to provide enough classificiation for tinctorius morphs. I will say, registering tinc morphs as official would certainly help, as new are discovered all the time. 

If it was possible, I would import a whole colony of WC tricolors and tincs, get a breeding colony going, sell off the breeders after a year, and import more to work with even more bloodlines. 

I'm going to have to do that someday if I'm that interested in breeding Mantella betsileo. I may be the only one here interested in propagating this species. They still allow imports.


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## Ben E (Oct 1, 2004)

just sent this guy to a retirement home where he will have a nice 30 gallon to himself....


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## bbrock (May 20, 2004)

Rain_Frog said:


> Instead, we should be trying to get as many established bloodlines as possible in order to insure healthy viable populations.


Rain_frog, I think you've made a lot of really good and interesting points in your last two posts so please forgive me for picking on a couple of them. I agree with most of what you have said but there are a few things worth thinking about I think.

The first is this statement about needing new blood lines. There seems to currently be a 'blood line' craze in the hobby but I don't think many people really understand what a blood line is or should be. In fact, I think there are too MANY 'blood lines' and I will explain. A blood line is a group of animals that have a distinctly different ancestory than animals from another blood line. It is usually assumed that blood lines come from the same species, and in our case, the same morph. If we want to maintain wild type animals, what we should be targeting are natural populations, not blood lines. A population is a group of animals that freely exchange genes among other members of the population but exchange genes with individuals from other populations only rarely or never. Populations tend to have a set of genetic characteristic that are a little bit (or a lot) different from other populations. If we want to maintain wild type animals, we should be trying to randomly breed animals that all came from the same wild population but not breed animals that came from different wild populations. Where do blood lines fit into this? Beats the heck out of me! Actually, blood lines were first used in the hobby to denote animals that couldn't be assigned to a specific wild population but could all be traced back to a common group of ancestors. That is fine except the blood line concept has been abused badly. One thing that happens is that a group of animals are collected from the same location and get imported. Some animals go to breeder A and others to breeder B. Those breeders sell offspring and people start calling them the 'A bloodline' or 'B bloodline'. Are they different blood lines? No! They shouldn't be anyway unless you want to selectively breed them. They are all frogs from the same wild population so they should be mixed together randomly and any mention of a 'bloodline' should be forbidden. But by now people who are familiar with how to keep a real studbook are probably fidgeting because bloodlines can actually be quite useful for tracking relatedness of individuals and for managing genes for diversity. However, I have given up hope of this hobby reaching that level of breeding sophistication anytime soon so I vote that if we know animals all came from the same wild population or even importation, scrap the bloodline stuff and mix them up.

It is absurd to destroy the diverse genetic pool in favor of money, looks, or just to do it...when the rainforest is rapidly being destroyed.



> What makes me a bit more liberal in opinion about crosses, is the fact that many selectively bred animals have appeared, but you don't pay much attention to it. Yellowback Tincs with "no dots," high orange Brazilian cobalts, even fine spot azureus is questionable whether or not it has been selectively bred, or natural. I do not know, perhaps somebody could clarify if that is true or not.


It doesn't matter if the "fine spot" azureus are natural or selectively bred because once you start calling them "fine spot" and putting fine spotted frogs together to breed, you are selectively breeding. All of the azureus in the country came from the same source. They are part of the same wild population. Any attempt to split them into subgroups that look alike is splitting up the genetic diversity of the population and selective breeding.



> It is business instinct though to sell rarer frogs, species/morphs, etc for a higher price. Nothing truly wrong with it though, but I'm making a point that its identical to anybody selling breeds of frogs.\


I would say it is a business instinct to sell frogs that would fetch the most profit. Rare fogs tend to do that but if there is no market for artificially created rare morphs, then there is no business incentive to make them. So far this is what has saved the dart frog hobby but as the hobby becomes more popular, I doubt we purists will be able to maintain a strong influence on the market.



> , even if its a common mint terribilis,


It's interesting to see this quote given that not long ago the mints were the only terribs to be found in the U.S. and I saw people paying up to $300 for them at the time. I thought they were suckers then, and I still think they were suckers. But it was the rarity and 'true dart frog' novelty that drove the market just as you suggest. To see them discounted as "common" is actually kind of nice. 



> A problem with the registering issue is the fact that some species become popular for a while, nearly disappear due to demand, and then reappear. Making bloodlines and details sketchy.


This isn't the "problem" with a registery, it is the REASON for a registry. A registry helps prevent losing information about animals and also helps breeders see what frogs may need a little help to keep them viable in the hobby.



> Before breeds were registered, morphs of natural populations must be accounted for. Some are confused over Giant Oranges and Reginas, for example.


The group I've been working with has developed a system that gets around some of these issues. It's too complicated to detail here but it follows the rule of doing the best that you can with what you've got. The idea is to at least retain the amount of information about frogs that we have now so it doesn't fade away with time.



> If it was possible, I would import a whole colony of WC tricolors and tincs, get a breeding colony going, sell off the breeders after a year, and import more to work with even more bloodlines.


I have a couple of problems with this. The first goes back to my first paragraph. If these frogs all come from the same wild population, then I don't think they are really new bloodlines. Just randomly mixing them into the existing captive population would introduce whatever additional genes they posses. The second problem is that there seems to be an assumption that perpetually introducing new frogs perpetually generates genetic diversity. That's simply not true. First it depends on how diverse the wild population is to begin with. Some wild populations arise from severe genetic isolation that creates a population of animals very closely related to each other. In other words, their natural genetic diversity is very low. Suppose you have a population of a million genetically identical clones. It wouldn't matter if you imported 2 or 2,000 individuals because your resulting captive population would have exactly the same genetic composition either way with every individual being a genetic copy of the next. So for any wild population, there will be a subsample that could be drawn that based on probability would include almost all of the genes present in the wild population. And this is not a linear relationship either. You have to capture disproportionately more frogs to capture a very high percentage of the natural variability than a lower percentage. For example, you may be able to capture 95% of the wild genetic variability with a sample of 100 frogs but to get 99% of the variability you may need to sample thousands of frogs. This is because the rarest genes are the hardest to get. If you have a gene that is only in 1 out of 5,000 animals, you would need to capture well over 5,000 animals to have a high certainty that you got one with that rare gene. So with respect to adding genetic diversity to a captive population, you reach a point of diminishing returns where bringing in more animals returns a very low probability of getting a new gene. Repetitive importations for the purpose of genetic diversity simply doesn't hold much water given that we can probably get 90% or more of a population's genes with a single, well-managed, importation. Going back for more adds very little to our ability to maintain healthy, geneticaly diverse, populations in captivity and it is a little greedy if you ask me.

Another comment made in an earlier post by someone referred to the '50 generations before genetic problems appear' and indicated that we needed more genetic diversity to safeguard against some inevitable crash. The 50 generation statement first off is a number pulled out of someone's butt but secondly is a reference to the fact that it takes many generations of LINE BREEDING before genetic problems typically appear. Emphasis on LINE BREEDING which is the most severe form of selective inbreeding you can do. This does not have anything to do with randomly breeding frogs from a small to modestly sized population. Randomly breeding 50 WC auratus and their offspring could easily produce a population that could remain viable forever. Just because we are starting with small populations of frogs does not mean that we are facing some impending genetic doom for these animals in the future.

I think lot of really good idea of come out in this thread. But people should realize that conservation genetics is a very complex field and if we really want to maintain wild type frogs or even get involved in conservation programs, we need to get trained up on some of the basic principles of conservation genetics.


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## bbrock (May 20, 2004)

shinoff said:


> Another thing I keep noticing is you guys talking about keeping records on the frogs like they do for dogs. My only question about this is whats taking so long to start something like that.
> 
> please do not take that last comment as being harsh or anything Im just curious


As one of the ringleaders of the effort, I can agree with you that it is taking way too long. Part of the problem is that we got the concepts of the registry ironed out but then realized that we really need to produce some breeding guidelines first. So we have shifted our efforts away from the registry for the time being to work on the guidelines. As was already mentioned, it is a large effort and being done by a fairly small group of volunteers in spare time. So the progress runs in fits and starts depending on when someone makes it a personal priortity. But the group has to remain fairly small by necessity or you get a "too many cooks in the kitchen" problem where nothing gets done. I think we may be bordering on that now but you also have to have a range of opinions to play devil's advocate and make sure things get done right. But we will get there and then everyone will be invited to kick the tires and tell us what is wrong and what is right. But this WON'T be a registry like they have with dogs. Dog registries are designed to make sure that the offspring of overly inbred monstrosities are just as hideous looking as their parents (that is sarcasm, don't blame me if your dog is disgusting :wink: ). The dart frog registry is designed to let us keep frogs looking and acting like the frogs in the wild.


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## Rain_Frog (Apr 27, 2004)

Thank you Brent for clarifying things.

Perhaps I don't know quite enough about genetics, I'm just trying hard, as you can tell, to try and preserve some of types of harder to find animals, like tricolor or Mantella betsileo. If you have another proposition to make, let me know, as I'd be interested in to insure genetic viability and preservation in the hobby, as well as potential reintroduction.


When I meant by WCs, if it lead to that problem, then forfeit the whole ordeal. But I have known no other way with my limited knowledge to preserve variability.

Many frogs I have an interest in, seem to be pretty obscure. One such example is Rana livida, Agalychnis annae, Pipa parva, etc. 

But, if I was the only one to breed consistantly Mantella betsileo, wouldn't that be considered line breeding then? (assuming if all offspring were decendants of the original three). Of course, I should of clarified, WC imports doesn't necessarily help, especially if the population is relatively small...or if they are collected in a similar area...but that is from my knowledge, I am working on a master's in Biology...so if I'm wrong, hope you understand a bit.

But I do believe personally that some of the less common frogs, there should be enough in captivity breeding (like M. betsileo or M. nigricans) before we can throw the hat in on WCs...as long as it isn't infringing too much. I do believe that captive breeding may be the only way to save some species, like Mantella bernhardi which is said to be extinct now in the wild. All I do, is hope for the best. At the rate of deforestation, pollution, not just for Dendrobatids, but for other lifeforms, even us, it is interesting how life "still finds a way..." or I hope it does!

Thank you, 


Rain Frog


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## stevendart14 (Feb 21, 2005)

Well,
As many have said the hobby is young and many right now is against hybrids. But I have seen frogs that is more readily available price drop very low(auratus). Frogs that are great breeders usually suffer severe price drops. Many think that around 40$ for Mint terrilibis is a decent price. But to me that price is outragous. The frog has a natural all white look and one of the biggest frogs outside the tincs. And 60$ for a azeraus is also very cheap for an all blue frog(black spots).But I think that this hobby could withstand hybrid and extinction. Due to the fact that these frogs have natural beauty and most can be seen all day. I think that Long Term Breeders or keepers of darts is thniking more about hybrids than begginers. Most newbies are so amazed at the colors and try to keep every specie that they have no time to think of hybrids. While people that been in the hobby a while(not everyone some) might become bored with the same frogs. Espectially ones that is in it for the money.Price drop-look of hybrids-and easily bred all led to the end or near of natural petrade species. About how long have this hobby been in the US. :?


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## bbrock (May 20, 2004)

Rain_Frog said:


> But, if I was the only one to breed consistantly Mantella betsileo, wouldn't that be considered line breeding then?


Well, if you start with 3 unrelated frogs and randomly breed the offspring, then it isn't exactly line breeding. Line breeding is when you are breeding in a straght line along a frog's lineage: sibling to sibling, offspring to parent, offspring to grandparent, etc. In this case you are starting out with two animals and keeping the whole line within whatever genetic variability was in those two animals. Starting with three is a little better but is still starting with a darn small population that isn't much better than line breeding. Would this cause genetic problems down the road? Maybe, maybe not. But if you find other breeders who have betsileo to trade for breeding stock, I wouldn't think of it as mixing bloodlines (assuming all betsileo come from the same wild population), I would think of it as mixing up the genes of the original population. The problem I have with 'blood lines' is only because of the way they are being used right now. I'm glad the hobby is worried about hybrids but with that worry has come a reluctance to mix 'blood lines'. The 'lines' are being used as the unit of segregation for captive populations so even if 3 different lines all came from the same place in the wild, they remain separate in captivity. I just think we need to get a little more organized and informed about the way we use these terms and apply them to our breeding decisions.

But I think your overall point that we need more information about the frogs and need to consider genetic management is a very good one and something we need to get better at.


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## bbrock (May 20, 2004)

stevendart14 said:


> Well,
> As many have said the hobby is young and many right now is against hybrids. But I have seen frogs that is more readily available price drop very low(auratus). Frogs that are great breeders usually suffer severe price drops. Many think that around 40$ for Mint terrilibis is a decent price. But to me that price is outragous. The frog has a natural all white look and one of the biggest frogs outside the tincs. And 60$ for a azeraus is also very cheap for an all blue frog(black spots).But I think that this hobby could withstand hybrid and extinction. Due to the fact that these frogs have natural beauty and most can be seen all day. I think that Long Term Breeders or keepers of darts is thniking more about hybrids than begginers. Most newbies are so amazed at the colors and try to keep every specie that they have no time to think of hybrids. While people that been in the hobby a while(not everyone some) might become bored with the same frogs. Espectially ones that is in it for the money.Price drop-look of hybrids-and easily bred all led to the end or near of natural petrade species. About how long have this hobby been in the US. :?


I don't think I agree with much of this. The hobby has been around in the U.S. for 20 years or more but really took a leap when the Internet reached the masses - so about 10 years. From my experience in the hobby (I got my first PDF 15 years ago and serious in the hobby for about 8), the long term breeders are the LEAST likely to get bored with a frog. Many, if not most, still have the good old G&B auratus that started out with and enjoy them just as much now as when they started. Very few people are in this hobby for the money. There are much easier ways to make money. Those few long term hobbyists who DO make a living off of frogs and other such things, make a great effort to make significant contributions to the hobby while still making their business commercially viable. Not that I said 'long term hobbyists' because there are folks I consider more as brokers who import or breed whatever will turn a profit in the pet trade. But other than importations, I don't think they have that great of an influence over the offerings within the serious hobbyist circles. But back to getting bored with certain frogs, this one REALLY bothers me. I can't even count how many species of PDF are available in the U.S. hobby let alone the number of morphs of those species. NOBODY in this hobby keeps all types that are available in captivity so there are numerous drop dead gorgeous and interesting types of naturally occuring frogs still available for ANY hobbyist looking for something new. Why does it follow that if you are bored with your frogs, your only option is to create hybrids? It just doesn't make sense.

I also disagree that long term breeders are more likely to produce hybrids than newbies. I do think that long term breeders spend more time worrying about hybrids but newbies are the ones most likely to mix a bunch of pretty frogs from different species or morphs together in a vivarium and produce hybrids. They are also the least likely to know that the pretty baby they have even ARE hybrids so they are also the most likely to introduce these hybrid frogs to the hobby as something they are not. I think that the only reason that hybrids and selectively bred frogs have not become rampant in the hobby is because the main stream hobby doesn't want them so the market is not there. That means it makes no business sense for some to invest time and resources producing hybrids that few people want.

I also don't agree that frogs "suffer" from low prices. I don't think that a $20 auratus or a $40 terribilis is a bad thing at all. When you have frogs that are incredibly easy to breed, you can't expect their price to stay high and reasonably priced frogs do a couple of things. One is they allow beginners to obtain easy to keep and easy to breed frogs for a reasonable price. This makes it less likely they will try to start with more rare and more difficult species. If mint terribilis were $100 what would be the incentive for a newbie to not try to start out with reticulatus instead? Easy to keep and breed frogs SHOULD have a lower price for this reason. The other thing these prices do is allow experienced breeders to add a few easy but low cost species to their collection without investing a lot of money. Even an experienced breeder may decide to add a trio of mint terribilis to their collection if it only costs them $120 whereas they may pass on shelling out $600 for a trio of a rare species. This means that more experienced breeders will have breeding groups of the common frogs in their collection which makes them more stable in the hobby. We aren't about to lose G&B auratus from the hobby. Why? It's not because hundreds of newbies have them. It is because hundreds of experienced breeders still have them and breed them. There will always be some new and rare frog to jack prices up on but once a species or morph becomes established in the hobby, I have no problem with prices reflectiving the ease or difficulty of breeding and maintaining those frogs.


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## dmartin72 (Oct 27, 2004)

Brent,

What frogs, which have been in the US for a long time, are on the brink of being lost forever within the US hobby? I spoke with one such breeder and he was working with some breeds of PDFs that he felt were on the verge of disappearing forever.


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## bbrock (May 20, 2004)

dmartin72 said:


> Brent,
> 
> What frogs, which have been in the US for a long time, are on the brink of being lost forever within the US hobby? I spoke with one such breeder and he was working with some breeds of PDFs that he felt were on the verge of disappearing forever.


I posted the best answer I could muster to this same question on another thread last week: http://www.dendroboard.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=6100&start=0


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## stevendart14 (Feb 21, 2005)

I started this forum asking for a picture of a hybrid that I seen once on a lost website. Now this forum is 4 pages long and is about hybrids and will they take over natural populations and other.Very interesting :shock: 
And I find myself included in this inturlectual coversation :shock:


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## dmartin72 (Oct 27, 2004)

Brent,

Great post by the way! I must have missed that. I don't remember if you covered this specifically, but off the top of your mind, can you think of one or two frogs that were wildly popular and abundant that are no longer in the US hobby?



> 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.


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## dmartin72 (Oct 27, 2004)

I wonder how often hybrids are being produced? What is happening with these frogs? This seems to be popping up more and more often, which worries me. Hopefully, I can ask this next question without anyone publicly flogging someone who has the courage to respond. For example, the following quote came from a forum in Europe.



> Thanks for your warm welcomes
> Currently I keep 2.2 D. leucomelas, 2.1 D.auratus, 0.2 D. ventrimaculatus at home (like the way I put currently- its enevitable your gonna get more :lol: ), at work we have P. terribilis, D. azureus, D. tinctorius, and accidentally 4 azureus x auratus which bred when I was trying to breed azureus, once I realized I removed auratus- which I now have  but the offspring are stunning, bigger than normal auratus but metallic green with blue feet! Hopefully getting D. pumilio in summer 8) Also have host of other fantastic frogs at work.


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## Guest (Apr 5, 2005)

dmartin72 said:


> I wonder how often hybrids are being produced? What is happening with these frogs? This seems to be popping up more and more often, which worries me. Hopefully, I can ask this next question without anyone publicly flogging someone who has the courage to respond. For example, the following quote came from a forum in Europe.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Well David it is a scarry thing forsure. I have checked a spanish forum for PDF's and I was double shock to read some post.

Some of those people from that forum, that by the way, it is not longer available were talking about encouriging and inbreeding PDF's It is very sad thing but it is happening very often now. There is not control over it and can't actually be; usually people that seems not to care to much about the morph just inbreed them to see what actually can be created, maybe the super million dollar frog. I wonder if we get those people and try to inbreed them with some chimps what it would come out like. :lol:


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## Guest (Apr 5, 2005)

In the breeder series it talks about hybrids as if they are already common over there. It also points out which one are sterile and which are not (not every hybrid but enough to make me worry). I'm pretty sure that to find that info out you would *want* to breed hybrids. I just can't believe that. It is truly sad that they treat these frogs like they are common and can get a fresh bloodline whenever they want, (so they can have wild color frogs). It makes me sick that they are doing it on what seems a regular basis. 

Sorry for the rant but hey we all have opinions and I would love to be proved wrong on these.



Edit: spelling sorry


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## bbrock (May 20, 2004)

dmartin72 said:


> Brent,
> 
> Great post by the way! I must have missed that. I don't remember if you covered this specifically, but off the top of your mind, can you think of one or two frogs that were wildly popular and abundant that are no longer in the US hobby?


I'm not the best person to ask because I don't really keep my finger on the pulse of what is or was in the hobby. I tend to concentrate on my own little group of species. But since you asked, I'm not positive of any that have completely dissapeared but there are a few in the earlier list I posted that have been imported legally in the past but the frogs that are in the hobby are from "questionable" origin. In other words, the legal import populations died out. I'm not sure if P. lugubris was ever in the U.S. but if it was, it was apparently lost. The picture in Jewels is actually a vittatus and the same picture (flipped) is labeled as vittatus in the smaller Walls book (or maybe the other way round). I would say that grans, histrio, and lehmani are all essentially dead in the hobby unless some stunning breeding success allows them to get established. Retics were almost gone not long ago. Not from lack of popularity, just difficult to breed. Thanks to Patrick, Greg Hoch, and some others, they appear to be safe for the time being. But completely gone? I don't know. Maybe someone else could answer that.


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## bbrock (May 20, 2004)

hexen84 said:


> In the breeder series it talks about hybrids as if they are already common over there. It also points out which one are sterile and which are not (not every hybrid but enough to make me worry). I'm pretty sure that to find that info out you would *want* to breed hybrids. I just can't believe that. It is truly sad that they treat these frogs like they are common and can get a fresh bloodline whenever they want, (so they can have wild color frogs). It makes me sick that they are doing it on what seems a regular basis.
> 
> Sorry for the rant but hey we all have opinions and I would love to be proved wrong on these.
> 
> ...


Without seeing more data than what is presented in the Breeder's Series (which is none), I refuse to believe their statements about sterility. Sterility in hybrids can come in a variety of forms that would take some fairly extensive experimentation to tease out. For example, in some hybrids, only the males are sterile. Other times, the sterility is actually just a very low fertility which means the probability of producing an offspring may be low but not zero. And the ability to produce hybrids from different species can be just as complicated. Breeding a bison bull to a beef cow seldom works because the fetus forms extra amniotic fluid that the beef cow can't handle. Switch it around and breed a beef bull to a bison cow, and you get a hybrid. So I can only assume, until proven otherwise, that the statements in the breeders series are based on a few attempts to breed hybrids which does not warrant the statements printed in the book.


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## stevendart14 (Feb 21, 2005)

This was my biggest fear in this hobby. For inbreeding and hybrids to start to interest people. In 10 years or sooner I am sure they will start to come in the main stream. They is so easy to create and look so amazing. Just think of all the different mixes that could be mad. There is hundreds of frogs which mean thousands of possiblities. Thats why I'm not in snakes, geckos, and many others. Just thinking of it make me sick nto my stomach. The truth is I would most likely like the look of the hybrids since they are dart frogs nonetheless. Its ineviable and when it come we will need an army to fend it off.


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## Guest (Apr 6, 2005)

"Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should."

- Ian Malcolm
_Jurassic Park_


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

In some hybrids, initially fertility is low but fertility then increases with each generation (assuming hybrid hybrid breedings or hybrid-parental stock breedings).

I too am very doubtful of claims of sterility in hybrid dart frogs. 

Ed


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