# Auratus gender and morph identification



## aapuzzo (Apr 20, 2020)

Anybody have a clue what I have here? I think 1 male and 2 females. They have doubled in size since I got them in March. Below is just my guess as to what they are. Also these were sold to me as green and brown auratus. They appear to be a blue/green and metallic black to me. The pictures do show a very good representation of the color Any idea on the morph if I wanted to get more pending I don't have males and females? 

I think this one is male as it has a slightly different shape than other 2 and is about 30% smaller. It isn't wider at all in the center and doesn't have a belly if facing me.









Male on left & 1 Female on right









Male furthest in back


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## Pumilo (Sep 4, 2010)

You can't identify a frog's morph or locale by it's appearance. There is too much variability within morphs. If you don't know, 100% for sure, what the actual morph is, well, then you have some lovely, but perhaps non-breed worthy pets.

I will let somebody with more Auratus experience comment on sexing them.


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## aapuzzo (Apr 20, 2020)

I think this is what I have and basically it says there is no locale for some of them. https://www.auratus-morphs.jeffravage.com/2019/07/20/green-bronze. I know I definitely bought green and bronze but not a specific locale like highland blue. It sounds like there was a generic batch of these imported years ago from Panama and the accepted morph is just Panamanian green and bronze. I also read the black turns more of a bronze color as they age. Mine were juveniles a few months ago and starting to show some differences.

I have been reading all night I am now 90% sure they are just Panamanian green and bronze as it states when bred together they sometimes very in color slightly and offspring can be slightly different in color. I remember even watching a youtube video when somebody breed these and some where more blue and some more green.

Check out the other morphs on that site it was extremely helpful for me in determining what I needed based on the information I had. I looked up panamanian green and bronze and auratus green and bronze and found others for sale just like mine. It was the green and blacks I kept finding everywhere that made me start to question what I had as being miss represented and the highland morph just confused me more.

In the future I will only buy from a known source and not just a random petstore that gets them in so there is no question as to what I have.


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## Pumilo (Sep 4, 2010)

I would strongly recommend that you go back to that pet store and ask to speak to a manager. Tell them that there are multiple auratus morphs, and how important it is to keep morphs pure and undiluted. Tell them how grateful you would be if you could speak directly to their breeder, or, barring that, would they be so kind as to call him up and ask him these exact questions... (basically, ask for everything. What was your original source for them? What was the import date? What is the exact name they were imported as. Where were they imported from? 

Any reluctance may be because they don't want to give you the source, and lose potential sales by you, deciding to eliminate the middle man. You have to find a way to ensure them that's not going to happen.


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## Itsadeepbluesea (Jun 6, 2020)

Beautiful frogs!


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## aapuzzo (Apr 20, 2020)

Pumilo said:


> I would strongly recommend that you go back to that pet store and ask to speak to a manager. Tell them that there are multiple auratus morphs, and how important it is to keep morphs pure and undiluted. Tell them how grateful you would be if you could speak directly to their breeder, or, barring that, would they be so kind as to call him up and ask him these exact questions... (basically, ask for everything. What was your original source for them? What was the import date? What is the exact name they were imported as. Where were they imported from?
> 
> Any reluctance may be because they don't want to give you the source, and lose potential sales by you, deciding to eliminate the middle man. You have to find a way to ensure them that's not going to happen.


I hate to say it but I actually tried that already which is why I first posted on this forum. As the frogs grew they became a little easier to identify. Let's say I learned my lesson and will never make this mistake again. Dart frogs are not easy to come by near me do when I saw these I was ecstatic and bought them on the spot thinking I knew the morph green and brown. After reading I called back up and asked the morph and local and they said they are just green and bronze Auratus. According to that website there is a morph called green and bronze Auratus which come from Panama. Even Josh's frogs sells a morph called Panamanian green and bronze which look like mine. All of the green and bronze Auratus that I see are a little more blue in color than the true green and black.

I do want to add these were captive breed for sure. They were the size of a fingernail and have doubled in size in a few months. They were from NERD in NH a well known pet store I happen to be lucky to live near. Maybe somebody has a clue with that piece of information. I was told they took them in as a trade.


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## Socratic Monologue (Apr 7, 2018)

They are nice looking frogs.

I wouldn't get at all confident on lining up your frogs with a picture, since there is no way conclusively to tell (and really no reason to believe) that they aren't morph crosses. Unless you know the breeder, and that breeder is trustworthy, there isn't any way to establish that some other morph hasn't worked their way into those frogs.

Ravage's excellent website is great for education, and for helping to choose your next morph, but a website cannot be a morph identification tool.

Enjoy your frogs!


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## aapuzzo (Apr 20, 2020)

That makes sense. The Green and Bronze Auratus sounds like a morph crossed line to begin with. Any opinions on the gender?


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## Socratic Monologue (Apr 7, 2018)

aapuzzo said:


> That makes sense. The Green and Bronze Auratus sounds like a morph crossed line to begin with. Any opinions on the gender?


If they were thumbnails I could offer a judgment, but on _Dendrobates_ I haven't a clue. Sorry!

The note about 'morph crossed line to begin with' brings up another interesting point: some 'morphs' either are naturally coextensive with, or we hobbyists always associate with, a wild locale (don't ask exactly what constitutes a locale, though...). Some 'morphs' (small scare quotes) are a combination of wild types, but we hobbyists have agreed to call the products of that combination a morph.

I guess I wouldn't want to lose sight of the fact that even if what we call a certain 'morph' isn't a natural type, it is still imperative to all be on the same page when we ID some frog or other. I'm taking myself to be riffing off of what you already pointed -- I hope it is clear that I'm not arguing.


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## aapuzzo (Apr 20, 2020)

I'm not taking you that way at all. It's pretty funny reading about all of these morph's/lines actually. Many of them can't be identified and I bet there is some actual cross breeding in their natural region. Green and bronze literally says a bunch came over in one box and somebody sorted them by color type and they found out they didn't necessarily breed true. Two that were more blue could make offspring that had more green.
I started to question what I had because when I looked them up online my green and bronze looked different than the ones a site had for sale because those were highland green and bronze. I then found they look like the Panamanian green and bronze which seems more generic. Mine didn't specify "Panamanian" when I bought hem but that is probably just a given since all the green and bronze game from Panama. I decided I am not going to rule them out from being that just because they didn't come from 1 of 3 websites. Nothing leads me to believe they were misrepresented.
I understand wanting to keep the lines pure but for Dart frogs it seems like people are taking it to another level vs other reptiles/amphibians. I bet in their natural range there is actually more variation then we are doing in the hobby. Some of these lines literally have the person's name on it that had the original pair. Some dart frogs came in with a group of 4 and 1 person took 2 and another took the other 2 and now offspring of each pair has the owners name on it . (it's true but I am just being funny).
I have another thread going on Leucomelas and for those even Josh's frogs has a "standard" which they say they crossed out to strengthen the lines whatever that means". The fine spot ones sound like they were just selectively breed along with the chocolates.
I'm just trying to learn and didn't realize I would try to pick a pair up to breed for fun and find out all this information causing me to regret my purchases. Obviously don't put Azuras with Leucomelas or Auratus . I draw the line on what was selectively bred.


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## Socratic Monologue (Apr 7, 2018)

aapuzzo said:


> I understand wanting to keep the lines pure but for Dart frogs it seems like people are taking it to another level vs other reptiles/amphibians.


Mostly that statement is accurate, and is a compliment.  

Some reptile folks are pretty good about locale purity -- gray banded kingsnakes (_Lampropeltis alterna_), for example. I have a pair that were collected in the same county, and that isn't even really good enough. Some lines are snakes that are found in the same road cut, often handfuls of meters apart. 

I can't think of any reptiles, though, for which locale crosses are completely condemned. That's why this hobby is special, and why some folks get really uptight about these things.


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## Socratic Monologue (Apr 7, 2018)

aapuzzo said:


> The fine spot ones sound like they were just selectively breed along with the chocolates.


Nope, fine Spot leucs are a naturally occurring morph from Venezuela. The chocolates are line bred, though, like you said.


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## aapuzzo (Apr 20, 2020)

Socratic Monologue said:


> Nope, fine Spot leucs are a naturally occurring morph from Venezuela. The chocolates are line bred, though, like you said.


Thanks I messed up on that one.


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## Johanovich (Jan 23, 2017)

Socratic Monologue said:


> They are nice looking frogs.
> 
> I wouldn't get at all confident on lining up your frogs with a picture, since there is no way conclusively to tell (and really no reason to believe) that they aren't morph crosses. Unless you know the breeder, and that breeder is trustworthy, there isn't any way to establish that some other morph hasn't worked their way into those frogs.
> 
> ...


Indeed, very nice looking frogs!

Also bear in mind that their pattern keeps changing for a long time during their life. I don't know for exactly how long, but my auratus still slowly change and they are over 2 years old. Not only does the pattern change, the colors also change slowly over time. The bronze tends to become lighter with age. This means that comparing them to pictures makes even less sense without knowing how old the frog in the picture is. 

For example, this is the same male frog, but the first pic is from may 2017 when he's close to a year old and the second one is from june this year (bad quality flash from phone make the color look weird). Comparing both photographs to different morphs would probably cause people to identify him as two different morphs even though its the very same frog.






aapuzzo said:


> That makes sense. The Green and Bronze Auratus sounds like a morph crossed line to begin with. Any opinions on the gender?


Your guess on the gender sounds correct, but don't be surprised if it turns out completely the other way around. Only way to know for sure is seeing them call.


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## aapuzzo (Apr 20, 2020)

Seriously that is the same frog? Are you sure the first didn't die and your mother bought you another hoping you wouldn't notice? I'm just being funny . That was really helpful and I did expect the bronze to get lighter. I can't believe the patters changed to small bronze circles. I would have even guessed that frog was a female by how much wider it is in the center. The back arch doesn't look dramatic though from what I can tell.


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## Johanovich (Jan 23, 2017)

aapuzzo said:


> Seriously that is the same frog? Are you sure the first didn't die and your mother bought you another hoping you wouldn't notice? I'm just being funny . That was really helpful and I did expect the bronze to get lighter. I can't believe the patters changed to small bronze circles. I would have even guessed that frog was a female by how much wider it is in the center. The back arch doesn't look dramatic though from what I can tell.


I'm pretty sure that it's the same one as I have photographs of the intermediate patterns. Unless my mother (or more likely my partner) switched frogs around 6 times or more 

Yeah I was convinced based on body shape I had at least three females. Turns out I have 6 males, just a few fat ones 

And yeah, he's definitely a dude:


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## aapuzzo (Apr 20, 2020)

Johanovich said:


> I'm pretty sure that it's the same one as I have photographs of the intermediate patterns. Unless my mother (or more likely my partner) switched frogs around 6 times or more
> 
> Yeah I was convinced based on body shape I had at least three females. Turns out I have 6 males, just a few fat ones
> 
> ...


I love it. I can't wait for the day I can tell what they are.


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## Socratic Monologue (Apr 7, 2018)

aapuzzo said:


> I love it. I can't wait for the day I can tell what they are.


You could throw them a little gender reveal party.


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## aapuzzo (Apr 20, 2020)

The revel party took place and the one I thought had the best chance of being female was the fore sure male. I caught it calling. I may be out of luck.


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## Johanovich (Jan 23, 2017)

aapuzzo said:


> The revel party took place and the one I thought had the best chance of being female was the fore sure male. I caught it calling. I may be out of luck.


Yup this can happen. Like I said I had 6 males (some of which were really fat) and have bought a suspected female in june and have finally gotten eggs recently. Pretty stoked that they are reproducing again!


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## aapuzzo (Apr 20, 2020)

Johanovich said:


> Yup this can happen. Like I said I had 6 males (some of which were really fat) and have bought a suspected female in june and have finally gotten eggs recently. Pretty stoked that they are reproducing again!


Now I am completely confused. I ended up with 2 clutches of eggs 5 days apart so would that mean I have 2 females? Can a single female produce a clutch less than a week apart? First clutch had 5 eggs and second clutch 6 eggs. The funny thing is the male that does all the calling is never near the other 2 frogs in the trio that I don't know the gender of. The frog in my first photo was the one I thought was the male but I never saw it call. The closest frog in my second and 3rd photo is the one I see call all the time but is always alone and not involved in the mating behavior. I observed the back scratching behavior with the frog in the top photo on the receiving end which I never saw call.

Thrilled I am getting eggs though. The first clutch molded so maybe they weren't fertilized.


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## Johanovich (Jan 23, 2017)

aapuzzo said:


> Now I am completely confused. I ended up with 2 clutches of eggs 5 days apart so would that mean I have 2 females? Can a single female produce a clutch less than a week apart? First clutch had 5 eggs and second clutch 6 eggs. The funny thing is the male that does all the calling is never near the other 2 frogs in the trio that I don't know the gender of. The frog in my first photo was the one I thought was the male but I never saw it call. The closest frog in my second and 3rd photo is the one I see call all the time but is always alone and not involved in the mating behavior. I observed the back scratching behavior with the frog in the top photo on the receiving end which I never saw call.
> 
> Thrilled I am getting eggs though. The first clutch molded so maybe they weren't fertilized.


Could be that you have 2 females, but I would give them more time to be sure. Clutches of young animals tend to be a bit erratic before they get things sorted. Either way good luck with the eggs, always fun to have breeding frogs.

Btw I made a timeline recently of the frog I posted before, that way you can clearly see its the same frog that has changed:


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