# Suriname Cobalt Var. 1 vs. Var. 2



## Mywebbedtoes (Jul 2, 2007)

I came across a site that referenced Dendrobates Tinctorius "Suriname Cobalt Var. 1" and a "Suriname Cobalt Var. 2". The first has much more yellow and white on the toes, the second has much more black. Are these seperate populations, or variance in the population? It seems what you see in the hobby is more of Var. 2. I was just curious what to make of it.


Wayne


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## defaced (May 23, 2005)

Do you have a link to that page?


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## Mywebbedtoes (Jul 2, 2007)

Here you go Mike. http://www.amphibiainfo.com/gallery/anura/dendrobatidae/dendrobates/tinctorius/ Second and third frogs down.

I was curious because I had a hard time identifying which cobalt my Tincs were for awhile because they did not look like most of the Suriname Cobalts I saw, and they did not look like the other Cobalts. Although I am positive they are Suriname Cobalts. So I am curious about these Suriname "variations".

Here are mine.

1st - More pale yellow with a lot of white on the side.
















2nd - More yellow less white


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## defaced (May 23, 2005)

It's odd they don't list the French Guyana Dwarf Cobalt. Since the pics come from Pumilio.com, you could pass them an email to get more info.


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## Mywebbedtoes (Jul 2, 2007)

That is a good point and a good idea.


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## hopalong (Sep 19, 2005)

Tell us what they say please, now I'm curious! Good question, I hadn't noticed that before.


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

That website only shows pics that are submitted to them, which is why the french guiana aren't shown (they are not on the pumilio.com website). There are two "variations" of suri cobalt on there because that's how they were listed on pumilio.com which donated the pics.

At this point they aren't considered distinct variations, but variations within the population that was imported. Some tend to have more yellow - I know certain Saurian bloodlines are known for this - and others tend to have thinner lines. There was some debate about the "cobalts" from suriname might have actually been two different populations mixed together in export/import when they were organized for color, but they are interbred now so who knows... It's mostly just a pattern variation.

FG and Suri cobalts are hard to mistake because of the massive size difference in them... the Suri cobalt is one of the larges, the FG cobalt one of the smallest.


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## Quaz (Nov 13, 2005)

I have a frog which I was wondering the same thing. The general consensos was that it's just a varient of the same. In my opinion it shouldn't be isolated because of the trait if you are of the no line-breeding / hybreeding camp. It's like the fine spot azureus. To our knowledge these variants don't have a particular locale but are just varients in the species. heres mine...










And his brother


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## Mywebbedtoes (Jul 2, 2007)

Thanks Corey.

Those are nice frogs Quaz, I remember your post. Mine are like yours. One has the almost azureus spotting, the other more white. Although yours has exceptional white on! Very pretty.


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## Mywebbedtoes (Jul 2, 2007)

Quaz, by the way, how are your tanks doing. They looked nice last I saw them. Any updated shots?


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## Quaz (Nov 13, 2005)

One thing that's weird to me about the tincs is the parrallel back stripes coming to the center line towards the vent. With mine that is more blue and spotted he lacks this line but that single line in the center seems to be so constant with the cobalt tincs. and other tincs as well. I'm I wrong here or is my observation right?

I'm sad about those tanks. I put those together for my buddy who owns an aquarium maintenance company and the maintenance guy just doesn't know, care, or have an artistic eye for what to do with them. It seems that I've only got time to go by, check on the frogs, deliver flies, maybe add water if the water feature is running dry then I've got to go. They are pretty unkempt now and a bit over grown. The frogs, i'm sure, love it but the impatiants which when trimmed are nice and bushy and flower continuously are gangly and the peacock fern is over growing the water fall. The timer on the vent fans always seem to not be working and the back moss wall is dried out. I think I just need to spend some time over there and do a little rehab. Since all the frogs are older now I'm going to be replacing them with a group of juvis so then I can do some trimming and stuff. Oh, by the way, T5 reef lighting is awesome on vivariums.


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

I was actually talking to Marcus Breece last night and these guys came up... most likely there were at least two differen cobalt populations originally harvested but basically down the line they have all become the mixed generic "Suriname Cobalt". We don't have the locality info and they are all mixed together so much like the sips we just have to roll with it.

Also - there has been a lot of inadvertant line breeding going on with these guys... a few lines are prevelant in the hobby, and siblings are often bred with siblings producing similar looking frogs. Breed them out to unrelated lines and the variety will pop up again.

Quaz - I think you're just seeing the variation here, not to mention the influence of diet (for color at least). It's hard to say something is "constant" with a highly variable "morph" like this. It's like saying all azureus have the same sized spots.


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## Mywebbedtoes (Jul 2, 2007)

Thanks Corey. That answewers my question. Kinda makes me sad though. oh well, what can we do now.

Quaz, that is too bad about the tanks. Hopefully you can get them back in to top notch shape.


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## Mywebbedtoes (Jul 2, 2007)

I got a response from Pumilio dot com on these guys. Basically I was told that for a long time Suriname Cobalts were not regularly coming into the hobby, and when a new shipment came in it was noticably different. Pumillio dot com kept the two "variations" seperate in their collection. I was also told the same thing Corey said, that at this point the blood lines are so crossed that there really is no way to determine what is what, so we get just a common "Suriname Cobalt". Saurian adds this,_ "This frog seems to occur across a wide area, and different localities show variations, in their color particularly." _In fact, Patrick has a picture of a Suriname that was imported and has a large showing of yellow on his site.


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## Quaz (Nov 13, 2005)

This just makes me think that there are hundreds of morphs for the overlapping population ranges. The tinctorius group of dart frogs colors and patterns range like colors in the rainbow. If you wanted to have a evolutionary study on isolation, concentration, and all of the muts that come out in the middle just look at the tincs. I was looking at the, i think, quality exotics website and the general locations for frogs is marked by a dot. I want to know how much land do those general subspecies of tincs range over and how much overlap of other morphs there are. With all this effort to keep visual and geographical distinctions pure in our frogs. It kind of seems less natural then what nature is doing. I guess though, it'd be a lot more difficult to say "Ok, this & this morph over lap and is ok to cross but not that and that." 

Well just thinking out loud. Anyone care to commment or know the larger range of tinc. morphs besides dots on a map? Thanks


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## Mywebbedtoes (Jul 2, 2007)

This might be of help. http://www.tropical-experience.nl/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=15&Itemid=27

Tropical Experiance may not be the most definitive list out there, I do not know. But it gives you a good idea of the location, but not so much the range. You will notice that many come from almost the same area. Although, what looks like the same area on a map could be miles or dozens of miles in real life.

Saurian gives more of a range.http://www.saurian.net/htm05/frog_menu_d_tinctorius.html Notice Suriname Cobalts have a large range. I suspect that if there was more site specific collecting of the Suriname Cobalts, then we would end up with more Cobalt morphs, frogs that were recognized as being consistantly different from their neighbor frogs. From what I have seen there is a pretty big difference in the variations of "Suriname Cobalts". Notice the two Patrick has, pretty big difference. Ofcourse, this could all be variations within a population, look at Bastis afterall. So is there cross over in the wild, I suppose there could be. But I agree that stating certain morphs or species could be crossed because it could take place in the wild would open up many cans of worms. I stick firmly to the stance that it is best to leave them to the way they are found in nature or as close as possible.


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

The population genetics can be a little confusing... you have to realize what we have in the hobby and what we are seeing in these guides are snap shots of a largely continous species population, with variences in the amount of genetic flow with the rest of the population (some have more limited than others, and some, like azureus, are almost completely cut off). Also, specifically with the case of the "Suriname Cobalt" - it's not exactly that they have a large population, but more likely that the color/pattern combination we lable "cobalt" (yellow dorsum with blue netting) is actually a combination that comes up repeatidly in the population, but may not actually mean the animals are part of the same interbreeding population. "Cobalts" pop up repeatidly in the population over the range of the species - even in French Guiana and Brazil hundreds of miles away. It's like a blue, green, or red with dark legged pumilio... doesn't mean the frogs actually occur within hundreds of kilometers of each other. Unfortunately, we didn't get good enough population information initially and they were sorted by color when they got here... So the Suriname Cobalt, much like the blue/green sips, are somewhat artificial morphs.


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## Mywebbedtoes (Jul 2, 2007)

Wow, thanks Corey. That is very interesting. There is so much to consider about our darts. Again it emphasizes why we never need to ad hybrids to the mix.


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