# Recent import



## rjmarchisi (Feb 16, 2004)

Any ideas. Supposedly it is a Rio Branco.

Rob


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## Dancing frogs (Feb 20, 2004)

I'm no morph expert...
But to me that looks like something crossed with an amazonicus...

I'm sure a pure morph of pumilio could look like that...but you have to admit it looks alot like amazonicus.


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## NCSUdart (Oct 1, 2004)

based on what we're being told are the "morphs" i'd say that looks most like the uyama rivers.


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## rmelancon (Apr 5, 2004)

I wouldn't say uyama river, I'd go with Rio Branco.


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## defaced (May 23, 2005)

I'd go Rio as well. To say that these frogs are variable would be a huge understatement. It will be interesting to see how the frogs at the finge of their group get classified.


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## Dendro Dave (Aug 2, 2005)

I'd say rio....a Red uyama? probably not.


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## Dane (Aug 19, 2004)

Red Uyama, if there is such a thing. The leg reticulations don't look much like the Brancos that I've seen. Also, my Rio Brancos have a solid body/belly color, and this one appears to have a white underside. I'm sure no one will judge you harshly for pairing it up with either, though. There's so little we know about the imports.


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## defaced (May 23, 2005)

Can you get a pic of its belly? I just got my Uyama's and their bellies are pretty much white and orange. I'll try to get a shot of them.


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

That looks like a rio branco, not like any of the uyama rivers I've seen. I guess I can kinda see how the pattern looks similar to a uyama, but its not. Remember, Brancos are an incredibly rariable morph.


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## rjmarchisi (Feb 16, 2004)

Totally white belly with one or two black spots.

Rob


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## defaced (May 23, 2005)

Similar white belly/black dots to this? 

This is a picture of a frog that didn't make it. I was a little shaky on its ID, but I'd guess Rio as well. These are pictures from the importer, not from me. It saddly shows the reality and risks of imports.


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## Guest (Jun 12, 2006)

*well*

well i say its one one the more intresting frogs ive seen.


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## sbreland (May 4, 2006)

Anybody notice an interesting problem here... How are we supposed to breed all of these recent imports and keep bloodlines separate?? To be honest, that last frog that Mike showed looks like a hybrid of a fant and something else and I agree the first looks like an amazonicus x. They may not be, but the fact that they LOOK like it and that we have so many frogs coming in that have names attached to them that may or may not be right is kind of scary. I can honestly say that I have seen at least 8-10 different color variations of Rios and Cristobals. You just don't see that kind of variation with your standard imis, leucs, or azureus and even when there is variation, it's easy to tell what each frog is because they are all very similar. Some of these new ones are not similar at all but are being called by the same name. We are all so concerned about keeping the bloodlines pure but I swear that it seems like a lot of these frogs have already screwed this up on their own and crossed lines and hybridized. Just curious as to who is going to lay down the ground rules for what a Rio is, what a Uyama is, and what a Cristobal is and what's going to happen to all of these beautiful frogs that blur the line and can't be classified into one category or another easily adn better yet what's going to happen to the people that breed them...

Oh, BTW, sorry about the brief (or not so brief) hijack


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

These are not hybrids... not with other species at least, especially not outside their species group (as I don't even know if thats possible to cross an eggfeeder with a thumbnail...). What you guys are seeing are individuals who happen to have similar pattern characteristics as other species... in this case I believe they are just flukes. But having similar patterns show up across the species groups, and even genera, really isn't that suprising, its just more common to see among a species. I think you are jumping to conclusions a bit by just looking off a couple pics.

There are morphs out there that have a lot of variation within the population - look at bastimentos, which vary in color, amount of spotting, size of spotting... These frogs that are coming in, from similar genetic whackiness as bastimentos (a larger population that was split up into smaller populations causes some crazy genetics) are showing similar variability... yes... enough to make some of us wonder if they collected all from the same place, but there ARE 3 morphs coming in. While it wasn't at first, its becoming more clear which is which (very few uyamas have come in so most of what you see are christobals or brancos). We need to make sure to keep to morph before we bother with bloodlines.

Being nitpicky about morphs seems to be the trend with the american hobby... you might see 8-10 variations in what is actually just a highly variable morph... but that doesn't mean we should seperate them. Its like the sip complex... are green sips and blue sips different? Or just different parts of the same population? Sorting by color didn't work out so well with that case...

Here is the break down from what I've seen, and general pics can also be seen on tropical-experience.nl, pumilio morphguide, page three, Branco and Uyama-II, and page 2 for variations in the Christobal (they show red and orange forms, showing the variation in body color, leg color, and spotting)

Christobals - tend the have the red/orange body color with bluish legs and round spotting - remeniscent of a BJ

Uyama II (tropical-experience.nl - and yes the name is important as there are actual "Uyama River" from the morph guide in the US) - These frogs tend to be predominantly black/brown blotches, with body color being a pale powder blue, and markings on the leg iridescent white, grey, powder blue, along those lines. More dark markings than "bright" markings - the opposite is true on the Brancos. These are very dark, muddy looking frogs comparatively, and very few came in, I haven't seen pics of any since the original post by SNDF.

Rio Brancos - tend to have yellow to red bodies, and seems to be predominantly grey to powder blue legs (lighter than christobals), all with large black "blotchy" spots that run into each other (christobals have "cleaner" rounder spots that tend not to run into each other), to full out huge blotches - some getting a cool "maze" look to their dorsum. The frog that started this thread would be a rather blotchy Branco.


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## sbreland (May 4, 2006)

I agree in the respect that the frogs we are looking at at the top are probably not hybrids and wasn't really suggesting such, just implying that the frogs have a pattern that looks like a cross or hybrid. You said these are not hybrid though and that I have to question that statement simply because how do we really know? These frogs that half say are a Rio and the other half say are a Cristobal... how do we know that somewhere in their lineage a Cristobal and Rio weren't crossed in the wild a few generations back. Do we know that Rios and Cristobals cannot interbreed? I doubt it, and for that reason I say that there is a distinct possibility that some of these frogs coming in may be hybrid (in nature) and are not true Rios or Cristobals by definition, but due to our obcession to classify everything they will eventually get thrown in with something eventhough they may not be a pure specimen and may not belong there. Then, down the road they wil breed and will produce more variation blurring the line even more. Unfortunately, I don't know what we would be able to do aside from reject all frogs that blur the line and could be hybrids and only take the ones that strongly represent the characteristics of the bloodline, but I can tell you that most people will not do that simply because a lot of the frogs are truly amazing. This may be one of those situations that we will be able to purify the bloodline to a degree, but there will always be those oddities out there that will challenge us.


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## sbreland (May 4, 2006)

I agree in the respect that the frogs we are looking at at the top are probably not hybrids and wasn't really suggesting such, just implying that the frogs have a pattern that looks like a cross or hybrid. You said these are not hybrid though and that I have to question that statement simply because how do we really know? These frogs that half say are a Rio and the other half say are a Cristobal... how do we know that somewhere in their lineage a Cristobal and Rio weren't crossed in the wild a few generations back. Do we know that Rios and Cristobals cannot interbreed? I doubt it, and for that reason I say that there is a distinct possibility that some of these frogs coming in may be hybrid (in nature) and are not true Rios or Cristobals by definition, but due to our obcession to classify everything they will eventually get thrown in with something eventhough they may not be a pure specimen and may not belong there. Then, down the road they wil breed and will produce more variation blurring the line even more. Unfortunately, I don't know what we would be able to do aside from reject all frogs that blur the line and could be hybrids and only take the ones that strongly represent the characteristics of the bloodline, but I can tell you that most people will not do that simply because a lot of the frogs are truly amazing. This may be one of those situations that we will be able to purify the bloodline to a degree, but there will always be those oddities out there that will challenge us.


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## Dancing frogs (Feb 20, 2004)

sbreland said:


> I agree in the respect that the frogs we are looking at at the top are probably not hybrids and wasn't really suggesting such, just implying that the frogs have a pattern that looks like a cross or hybrid. You said these are not hybrid though and that I have to question that statement simply because how do we really know? These frogs that half say are a Rio and the other half say are a Cristobal... how do we know that somewhere in their lineage a Cristobal and Rio weren't crossed in the wild a few generations back. Do we know that Rios and Cristobals cannot interbreed? I doubt it, and for that reason I say that there is a distinct possibility that some of these frogs coming in may be hybrid (in nature) and are not true Rios or Cristobals by definition, but due to our obcession to classify everything they will eventually get thrown in with something eventhough they may not be a pure specimen and may not belong there. Then, down the road they wil breed and will produce more variation blurring the line even more. Unfortunately, I don't know what we would be able to do aside from reject all frogs that blur the line and could be hybrids and only take the ones that strongly represent the characteristics of the bloodline, but I can tell you that most people will not do that simply because a lot of the frogs are truly amazing. This may be one of those situations that we will be able to purify the bloodline to a degree, but there will always be those oddities out there that will challenge us.


I agree, for that matter, how do we "know" that even the more established frogs in the hobby are not hybrids?
I also agree that the other frog looks like a fantasticus mutt...that's the first thing I thought of when I saw the butterfly on the head.
I also remember seeing a pic of one that almost looked like a standard lamasi...
I was going to mention these earlier, but my asbestos lined suit was at the cleaners...

Again, I don't doubt there can be a pumilio that looks like other thumbs that are already in the hobby, I'm just saying that's what they look like to me...I guess I'd have to see populations of these in the wild to totally trust they are "naturally occurring" species enough to get me to buy them.


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

This brings me back to the days when it used to be believed that intermedius was a hybrid between imitator and fantasticus... and thats why they had similar markings... wasn't so true after all!

Looks can be decieving, as there are a couple different mimicries going on within the family...


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## Dancing frogs (Feb 20, 2004)

...oh yeah, that old chestnut!
...only the Grandfrogs Know for sure!


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