# Let's list the designer morphs



## skylsdale (Sep 16, 2007)

I thought it would be interesting (as well as a good resource in the archives) to list the various "morphs" in the hobby that are a result of selective/designer breeding. Off the top of my head:

D. tinctorius "Lemon Drop"
D. tinctorius "Azureus - Sky Blue"
D. auratus "Microspot"
D. auratus "Super Blue"


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## SmackoftheGods (Jan 28, 2009)

leucomelas "chocolate" (throw naturally, but a recessive trait)
reticulatus "striped"
_possibly_ leucomelas "micro-spot"
I've heard whisperings of leucomelas "ghost" (throw naturally, but recessive trait)
D. azureus "micro-spot"
D. azureus "no spot"


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## Paul G (Feb 27, 2007)

No dot citronella tincs.
Green & yellow Sipaliwini tincs.

Aren't inferalanis and alanis tincs the same morph but line bred cause slightly different?
Same for "camo" auratus? (greener coloration of Campana?)


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## thedude (Nov 28, 2007)

"gray leg" and "blue leg" vents
"blue escudo" pumilio (i know it occurs naturally but people seem to be splitting them)
"small spot" leucs

what about the powder blues and powder gray tincs? or all of the different galacts? like 65%, 75%, 85% and 95% orange, red and yellows? surely they cant all be divided up like that? i highly doubt they breed true.

i dont think the "striped" retics are line bred. didnt they come in in a different shipment and they all looked like that?


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## azure89 (Jan 5, 2009)

I think that powderblue tincs grey leg and blue leg forms are line bred but I'm not sure. I think that it would be cool to get some photos of these different designer morphs


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## Corpus Callosum (Apr 7, 2007)

Understory Enterprises has sold a striped reticulatus in the past that was naturally occurring population and kept the stripes into adulthood.


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## ggazonas (May 11, 2008)

thedude said:


> "gray leg" and "blue leg" vents
> "blue escudo" pumilio (i know it occurs naturally but people seem to be splitting them)
> "small spot" leucs
> 
> ...


I wouldn't consider blue leg or grey leg vents "designer frogs" since the leg color is just a variable trait....either way two blue legs don't breed true, and you can get grey leg offspirng....both the blue leg and grey leg are French Guiana vents.

As far as the galacts go the % is nonsense...either they are black underneath and colored on top of they are solid.


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## ChrisK (Oct 28, 2008)

OK what about moonshine galacts, are they their own morph from their own locality?


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## Corpus Callosum (Apr 7, 2007)

I spoke to a few respectable froggers who have been in the hobby for over 20 years and they said when some of the original imports of the moonshines came in, they were on their own import (not mixed with other galact morphs). This would suggest they were collected from a separate population / their own locality.


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## joshsfrogs (May 6, 2004)

Ron,

Could you define designer morphs? When I think of that term, I think of animals that have been so inbred that their offspring will display the patterns/colors of their parents.

I think you are referring to animals that should be part of a morph and not specific morphs themselves (i.e. both dotted and no dot citronellas are part of the morph "citronella").

I'd hate for someone to be labeled as selling "designer morphs" (which would be a black eye in this hobby) when they are simply describing the offspring.


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## zBrinks (Jul 16, 2006)

I would hesitate to call D. leucomelas 'fine spot/microspot/whatever' a line bred morph. From what I can tell, several localities of leucomelas exist in the wild that display finer spots, and the 'fine spot' leucs in the hobby may just be a representative of one of those populations. I know that my fine spots have a slightly different call than my 'nominats', just as different as my 'bandeds' or 'green foots'.

I also came across a frogger selling F2 of what he was calling 'fine spot sky blue' azureus - supposedly a lighter blue, almost no spot azureus from a 1984 import. They appeared a little larger than most adult azureus I've seen, and started life looking relatively normal, getting lighter and losing spots with age. The amount of spotting did not seem to be linked to males, as in the 100% known line bred fine spot trait. Has anyone else heard of these guys?


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## skylsdale (Sep 16, 2007)

joshsfrogs said:


> Ron,
> 
> Could you define designer morphs? When I think of that term, I think of animals that have been so inbred that their offspring will display the patterns/colors of their parents.
> 
> ...


That's a good point, Josh: and yes, I'm referring to animals from within a morph that are bred for specific traits ("designed" for a certain phenotype is what I had in my head when I used the term "designer"). I also am not posting this to point fingers or anything...but thought it would be a good conversation to see how we are breeding and managing frogs in the hobby.

There is also a nuance we need to keep in mind that has already popped up. For example the blue and grey-legged vents: the variation of leg color is just a natural variation within the population, but we got so "phenotype" happy that we seperated them out into seperate lines and have breed them accordingly. Then there is the "azureus - fine spot" (I'm labeling azureus as a morph/locale, not a species) which is a result of pulling out animals with that trait and then breeding them together.

Now that I think about it...perhaps it's not a nuance at all and they are both the same thing. Thoughts?

As for the Camo auratus: that is a naturally occuring phenotype in the wild (and quite a diverse one) from the Campana area, it just doesn't have any locale data (the problem of which is being discussed in another thread on here). The Striped form of reticulata is naturally occuring as well, and from what I understand, the actual trait of a population: I have a species of ventrimaculata that was collected alongside a population of striped reticulata and originally mistaken as that species because of the prominence of the stripes. So it's not a created, line-bred frog.


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## joshsfrogs (May 6, 2004)

> That's a good point, Josh: and yes, I'm referring to animals from within a morph that are bred for specific traits ("designed" for a certain phenotype is what I had in my head when I used the term "designer")


Then we have two lists going on. For instance, is there F2 super blues yet? We have to dumb this down for the masses...if we label super blues as a designer morph, people won't buy them and they will disappear even though they aren't anywhere near as inbred as some of our other frogs...

We need a gigantic dart frog family tree showing which frogs are separate and which ones should be crossed together. 



> or example the blue and grey-legged vents: the variation of leg color is just a natural variation within the population, but we got so "phenotype" happy that we seperated them out into seperate lines and have breed them accordingly.


I PMed george...there were quite a few different imports of yellow vents and we most likely we have them all mixed together across the hobby, but mixing them may not be accurate as we don't know if all imports came from the same area. I've been telling people not to mix the lines we have (we have three separate yellow vent lines that I can't track to a common ancestor). Here is what Tor told me in an email years ago:



> _I have 3 types of yellow vents… these have little information on where they are from… one from Dutch breeder, years ago, … another from an animal importer that I think is gone from the hobby… another imported by a reptile breeder who thought he was getting snakes and ended up with frogs… all standard yellows like the ones in Heselhaus… one a little more metallic…_





> There is also a nuance we need to keep in mind that has already popped up. For example the blue and grey-legged vents: the variation of leg color is just a natural variation within the population, but we got so "phenotype" happy that we seperated them out into seperate lines and have breed them accordingly.


We have relied on phenotype for the purpose of separating locales since we have minimal information at best. We have two separate goals in mind:

1. Not breeding separate locals together
2. Increasing genetic swaping

I think we need to keep number 1 as a higher goal even if it means sacrificing to some degree number 2. For instance, alanis and inferalanis supposedly came in the same box and were separated, but I think we should keep them separate just in case they are different.


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## Corpus Callosum (Apr 7, 2007)

joshsfrogs said:


> We have relied on phenotype for the purpose of separating locales since we have minimal information at best. We have two separate goals in mind:
> 
> 1. Not breeding separate locals together
> 2. Increasing genetic swaping
> ...


There should be a goal in mind even before these 2 guidelines, because that will dictate how one should go about those 2 guidelines so that individual can accomplish their goal.

For example, let's say this individual had the goal of conservation. We already know that none of our frogs in the hobby will end up back in the wild so we would have to focus on other methods like continuing breeding the frogs in captivity to try and reduce some demand for excessive importation. Let's say we have two frogs without site data that seem like they could be variations within the same population but because of the lack of data we don't really know.

If we focus on the first approach of not breeding them together, the pros are that they are still kept separate in case we later find they really were separate locales, and the cons are that they get inbred to the point that inbreeding depression shows up and it becomes hard to continue to breed the population in captivity. If we focus on the second approach, the pros are that the captive population is kept diverse and should last longer in captivity, and the cons are that even though they may have looked the same they may not have been genetically the same and we have now permanently mixed them together. There are obviously a lot more specifics that need to be taken into consideration but these are some that come to point, thinking on a general level.

Now let's look at the market demand of the hobby, most hobbyists will only care that the frogs in the hobby just look like the wild frogs. There is probably a small percent (like some of the DB community) that cares that they are the same on a genetic level, and another small percent that doesn't care about anything and would buy a cool looking hybrid. But for most of the hobby I would assume if the frog looks like a real frog in the wild, they don't care about the specifics too much. So keeping this perspective in mind, and going back to the 2 original factors with both extremes looked at, it would seem to me that if the original goal was conservation you are safer mixing the two frogs in question together because you are producing frogs that still look like wild frogs which satisfies most of the hobby and keeps the population diverse. Rather than segregating them to the point that inbreeding issues show up, and for what goal, that you have two types of yellow vents neither of which had site data to begin with? Most of the hobby outside of DB just cares that they have a yellow vent, and DB is just a small part of the hobby as a whole.

Obviously if there was a case where you had more data to rationalize segregation then that helps make the decision easier (again depending on the individual's goals). For example, banded intermedius that have been in the hobby for years don't have site data, but it would not be a good call to mix them with other intermedius that don't have site data because the banded intermedius can be linked to a geographically isolated population in the wild by their phenotype of being banded, and if you breed them in captivity you will see they breed true for that (unless there was contamination in the imports). So there are some situational scenarios, but you have to think about all the factors and your goal as a hobbyist as you make your personal decisions. That's one nice thing about frogs with site data, you know exactly where they came from so you know to keep them separate, and can look at the population dynamics of their wild counterparts to learn more how they should be managed in captivity (i.e. what they can or can't be kept with).

Some random thoughts,


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## SmackoftheGods (Jan 28, 2009)

My suggestion that striped reticulatus are line bred comes from what I read on Saurian.net. Under his reticulatus there is a picture of a dotted retic, the captions reads:

"This pair of reticulatus show quite a bit of the stripe pattern common in juveniles. This appears to be genetically inherited characteristic, and we are working on producing fully striped reticulatus."

Also, I know there is some dispute about whether or not microspot leucs are line bred or naturally occuring which is why I said _possibly_ microspot leucs (as I knew there would be some debate about whether or not they are _actually_ a designer morph).


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## npaull (May 8, 2005)

My sense of this issue is that we'd all be absolutely shocked by how much phenotypic variation we segregate in captivity is actually representative of sympatric phenotypic variation in the wild. I think this is especially true with species that have relatively small geographic distributions. I remember a communication I had with Evan Twomey some time ago about imitator populations. I can't remember the specifics but the gist was that there's A LOT of overlap of phenotypically quite distinct imitator populations.

I definitely lean towards the "lumper" side of this coin. Not to the point where I would ever crossbreed distinctly different morphs of the same species, but I have a pretty healthy eye-roll for the distinction between, for example, gray leg vs blue leg vents, sky blue vs normal azureus (particularly ridiculous distinction given how tiny the wild population is), no-spot vs regular citronella, etc. 

I think we need to be very careful with how strictly we subdivide populations, particularly for small importations like are coming through SNDF and Understory. People are already isolating the Escudos into three different groups, and they are (if my understanding is correct) not only totally sympatric but also from the same damn island!


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## AzureFrog (Feb 3, 2009)

joshsfrogs said:


> We need a gigantic dart frog family tree showing which frogs are separate and which ones should be crossed together.


Excellent idea!!! Auratus, for example, has several different names for the same morph (i.e. - Super Blue, Blue and Bronze, Microspot, Turquoise and Bronze, Green and Bronze), to a newbie it is very confusing. 

Peace
Shawn


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## ggazonas (May 11, 2008)

Josh I pmed you back...We'll have to talk about the vents because you have so serious information there that looks like it should be incorportaed into the TMP


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## Woodsman (Jan 3, 2008)

It is clear from a number of different sources that Giant Orange and Regina tinctorius are frogs from the same locality and have been segregated based on their "looks" (which is subjective in itself) or as a marketing ploy. My current project involves trying to acquire as many different lines of each, keep breeding pairs of the "line" animals, then make careful crosses of each line with the other(s). I think if we keep careful records of this kind of work, we can increase the genetic diversity within the morphs and give them all the "new blood" that fans of wild-collected animals seem to desire.

There are a lot of frogs and space required to even work with this "one" morph. So, if more folks in the frogger community would be willing to take on some "orphan" morph (especially tinctorius!!), we could go a long way in helping improve the health of all our frogs into the future.

Morphs that are not locality-associated would be harder to work with, I think.

Take care, Richard.


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## thedude (Nov 28, 2007)

ggazonas said:


> As far as the galacts go the % is nonsense...either they are black underneath and colored on top of they are solid.


thats what i thought about that. but what about the "wedge" morphs??

so for galats its:
"solid orange"
"orange" (65%, 75%, 85%, 95%)
"red" (see above)
"yellow" (see above)
"moonshine"
"koi" sean stewarts imports


the reason i said gray leg and blue leg vents was people seem to be seperating them, so eventually they could remain completely seperate.

npaull,
im definitely agreeing with you on this. the fact that azureus are being seperated like that when they have such a small range is very alarming. same with escudos, even if some have more blue or red...they are the SAME.


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## PumilioTurkey (Feb 25, 2010)

can you explain to me how one can possibly seperate escudos and azureus?

do they count all the black dots on azureus and calculate the red/blue-percentage?


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## ChrisK (Oct 28, 2008)

PumilioTurkey said:


> can you explain to me how one can possibly seperate escudos and azureus?
> 
> do they count all the black dots on azureus and calculate the red/blue-percentage?


Escudos are Pumilio, Azureus are Tinctorius


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## thedude (Nov 28, 2007)

ChrisK said:


> Escudos are Pumilio, Azureus are Tinctorius


i dont think he ment from eachother  


basically some of the azureus have a lot of big spots and are darker, and some have few, small spots and are lighter. for some reason people split them up. its dumb really.

same with escudos, some are almost all blue, some are almost all red, and some are inbetween. again, for some reason people split them up. some even sell one variation for more than another.


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## ChrisK (Oct 28, 2008)

Looks like I was reading too fast


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## Chris Miller (Apr 20, 2009)

skylsdale said:


> The Striped form of reticulata is naturally occuring as well, and from what I understand, the actual trait of a population: I have a species of ventrimaculata that was collected alongside a population of striped reticulata and originally mistaken as that species because of the prominence of the stripes. So it's not a created, line-bred frog.





SmackoftheGods said:


> My suggestion that striped reticulatus are line bred comes from what I read on Saurian.net. Under his reticulatus there is a picture of a dotted retic, the captions reads:
> 
> "This pair of reticulatus show quite a bit of the stripe pattern common in juveniles. This appears to be genetically inherited characteristic, and we are working on producing fully striped reticulatus."


There are at least two distinct populations of striped R. reticulata in Peru and possibly another one near the Brazilian border. These two populations are even morphologically different from each other as they occupy different niches in their habitat.

That being said, that doesn't mean that people haven't tried to create striped reticulata. I just doubt that anyone has been successful.


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## srrrio (May 12, 2007)

ggazonas said:


> As far as the galacts go the % is nonsense...either they are black underneath and colored on top of they are solid.


You have thrown me for a loop on this. I agree that the actual % of color means next to nothing. However I have thought that my 95% orange from Saurian for example, are not to be mixed with any other orange galacts.That many galac morphs are their own populations including 95%, wedge, mooshine, etc.This is stated pretty clearly (I thought) from the care sheet listed on DB. If I am wrong, I have passed up many beautiful galactonotus that "looked" just like mine but had lacked info. on what % they were (and what breeder they came from).

Sally


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## skylsdale (Sep 16, 2007)

Just to echo what has already been said: Escudo are Escudo are Escudo. To seperate based on phenotype is purely a marketing ploy. The entire population is on an island about 6 miles long by 2 miles wide, 10 miles off the Panamanian mainland. There are no ridges, no permanent streams, no isolating features on the island...and the population is extremely variable with combinations of blue and red, even looking somewhat brownish at times. All the same frog.

Personally, I'm a lumper when it's best to lump and a splitter when it's best to split.  Like Mike K said earlier, it's very situational and we have to take things on a case-by-base basis. But when we split, or are looking at historical splits in the hobby, I think we need to look at what the motivation was/is for the splitting: how much of it is marketing? How much of it is just an attempt to be the only source of that morph/line? 

And I find it strange the sort of misinformation that tends to get passed along. Take _A. quinquevittatus_, for example: I think the care sheet on here even said that the Tan line of frogs is easier to breed than the Kelley line of frogs? That's interesting considering that they're the same frog! Phil and Todd each ended up with sole suriving frogs from that shipment, and they combined their two frogs and luckily formed a pair which produced many of the frogs currently in the hobby. Exactly how does one justify half of the offspring being easier to breed than the other half of said offspring?


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## skylsdale (Sep 16, 2007)

Edit to my above post: the care sheet doesn't say that either is easier to breed...I must have read into that. However, it does mention differences that don't quite make sense to me.


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## EricM (Feb 15, 2004)

Retics used to come in tropical fish shipments many times a year and most of the shipments the frogs were slightly differant looking. Some were larger overall frogs, some smaller. One shipment from Brazil were coppery metallic, very unique. Striped retics are a known morph in some areas, but it's been already stated, frogs don't obey any boundries or borders so we can't really get a feel for the amount of overlap that exists. Also pattern and other factors reflected in the phenotype change over time due to change in the gene pool.

Alanis and Inferalanis are differant morphs, they come from differant locations. All the tincts from SNDF are legimate imported animals from differant locations. I am 100% positive none of them are line bred. That being said "no dot" and dot citronellas came in the same shipments, powder blue and powder grey legs came in the same shipments. It has been well documented that no dots will produce dots for example.

There are many morphs of galacts in Brazil that we have not seen yet due to the locations and the restrictions of getting them out of the country. There are reports of many morphs and colors beyond the "5-6" that we see in the hobby. Almost all of them came in from the same source. I agree the % of orange on the frog is probably bogus. I don't keep the 95% one but I'd love to get it and see what the offspring look like in comparison to 75%.

I was present at the unpacking of many of the Panamanian auratus shipments where we waded through 1,000 frogs and separated them by phenotype and size. There were tons of frogs and we basically separated all of them and then set up pairs of frogs that looked like each other. Like Super blues, green and bronze, various campanas, etc. Almost all of them bred pretty true with some variation as most frogs do. So it wasn't a flawless system but what else could be done with no site data or anyway to track the original frogs. 

Then there are many shipments to the pet trade with no information or concept of morphs, which is incredibly complex to sort for seasoned froggers, such as mixed pumilio shipments; and almost impossible for joe pet store owner to make any sense of.

On the sky blue azureus, I recall and I possibly could be totally wrong, but there was a pair at the NAIB that were throwing these froglets and that is where the line bred stock has originated from. I don't think NAIB got more than 20 frogs from Suriname, so as a sample of the wild stock I think it's really reaching to consider any "morphs" or azureus. I'm sure someone else can fill in the details more specifically.

Mike makes great points and every morph needs to be looked at individually. We as a community need to use the information that we do have, and find those tidbits that others have to formulate a TMP (taxon management plan) that the hobby as whole can adopt. 

another 2 cents from the peanut gallery

Eric


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## james67 (Jun 28, 2008)

gold dust bastis?


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## skylsdale (Sep 16, 2007)

EricM said:


> I was present at the unpacking of many of the Panamanian auratus shipments where we waded through 1,000 frogs and separated them by phenotype and size... So it wasn't a flawless system but what else could be done with no site data or anyway to track the original frogs.
> 
> Then there are many shipments to the pet trade with no information or concept of morphs, which is incredibly complex to sort for seasoned froggers, such as mixed pumilio shipments; and almost impossible for joe pet store owner to make any sense of.


I don't envy any of that, Eric. 

Also, in regard to what and how we manage frogs, whether they should be lumped together or split...the ASN has a key in the guidebook for folks to work through in order to inform these decisions.


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## thedude (Nov 28, 2007)

james67 said:


> gold dust bastis?


no thats a naturally ocurring phenotype that people are splitting from the bastimentos populations in general. most likely all of the bastis we have are from one population (western or eastern i cant recall) and that population contains forgs that are orange, white, "peach", green, blue, red, and yellow. unfortunately people just split them up.


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## ChrisK (Oct 28, 2008)

thedude said:


> no thats a naturally ocurring phenotype that people are splitting from the bastimentos populations in general. most likely all of the bastis we have are from one population (western or eastern i cant recall) and that population contains forgs that are orange, white, "peach", green, blue, red, and yellow. unfortunately people just split them up.


Would the red frog beach frogs still be considered a separate morph (or locality) from the common bastis then?


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## thedude (Nov 28, 2007)

oh ya i forgot some of those came in. ya they would be seperate. you should look back through JP's threads from when he was researching the pumilio. im pretty sure for bastimentos island there were several populations:
'western'
'eastern'
'salt creek'
'red frog beach'
'cemetary?'


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## ChrisK (Oct 28, 2008)

Yeah I also think the 2 different Colon localities should be kept separate -


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## thedude (Nov 28, 2007)

ChrisK said:


> Yeah I also think the 2 different Colon localities should be kept separate -


ya theres bocas del drago and whats the other one? i think its mostly their legs that tells them apart.


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## ChrisK (Oct 28, 2008)

thedude said:


> ya theres bocas del drago and whats the other one? i think its mostly their legs that tells them apart.


I think the other is La Gruta, much larger spots and less orange/yellow legs than the Del Dragos


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

EricM said:


> On the sky blue azureus, I recall and I possibly could be totally wrong, but there was a pair at the NAIB that were throwing these froglets and that is where the line bred stock has originated from. I don't think NAIB got more than 20 frogs from Suriname, so as a sample of the wild stock I think it's really reaching to consider any "morphs" or azureus. I'm sure someone else can fill in the details more specifically.


This is what I remember. The lighter blue/small spot azureus were from that line of frogs but people began breeding them for the color resulting in seperation and stabilization of a pattern through selective breeding. 


Ed


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## skylsdale (Sep 16, 2007)

As far as Bastimentos pumilio...the Salt Creek population is isolated and should be kept so in captivity. The Red Frog Beach population is the same and breeds fairly true...but other populations don't and carry quite a bit of phenotypic diversity. So "gold dust" and "blue" and all that...I assume are from the same population.


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## thedude (Nov 28, 2007)

skylsdale said:


> As far as Bastimentos pumilio...the Salt Creek population is isolated and should be kept so in captivity. The Red Frog Beach population is the same and breeds fairly true...but other populations don't and carry quite a bit of phenotypic diversity. So "gold dust" and "blue" and all that...I assume are from the same population.


ya thats what i was saying. i cant remember if we have the western or eastern population but the other one is kind of red with almost no spots if i remember correctly. when i have time ill look through JP's threads and find out.


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## james67 (Jun 28, 2008)

thedude said:


> no thats a naturally ocurring phenotype that people are splitting from the bastimentos populations in general. most likely all of the bastis we have are from one population (western or eastern i cant recall) and that population contains forgs that are orange, white, "peach", green, blue, red, and yellow. unfortunately people just split them up.


thats what i was saying. no one had mentioned them, that i saw, so if we're on deigner morphs, then heres based all the info i can find , a designer pum.

james


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## skylsdale (Sep 16, 2007)

I think most of them are from the area around the cemetary, which is a pretty phenotypically diverse population from what I understand. 

I understand breaking frogs up in the way we've done so simply because we didn't have information about their locales...but once we get information and use the tools we have, we should make changes in our captive management accordingly.


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## azure89 (Jan 5, 2009)

So in the case of "designer" mophs is it acceptable to breed two seperate phenotypes together if they were collected from the same area or would this be considered hybridization? 

For example breeding a grey leg powder blue tinc with a blue leg powder blue tinc, is this ok or frounded upon? because in my opinion they are the same frog if they came from the same locale, they would have bred naturally anyway right?


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## MonarchzMan (Oct 23, 2006)

thedude said:


> oh ya i forgot some of those came in. ya they would be seperate. you should look back through JP's threads from when he was researching the pumilio. im pretty sure for bastimentos island there were several populations:
> 'western'
> 'eastern'
> 'salt creek'
> ...


There are four-ish populations on Bastimentos. Depending on how you decide to split up the populations, there could be more. At the western side of the island, you have the Cemetery population which is the polymorphic population that is primarily represented in the hobby. There's the Red Frog Beach population at the north-central part of the island that is red to red-orange with small spots. Then at the eastern side of the island, you have the Salt Creek population with red tops, white bellies, and gray-green legs. As best as I can tell, the southern portion of the island is very Solarte-like in appearance. They're all orange (maybe a slightly deeper orange than Solartes) with white toes. These seem to cover much of the southern extent to the island.

I am not certain on the phenotype of the central island frogs or the frogs directly next to Solarte (although I'm assuming they look very much like Solarte).


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## thedude (Nov 28, 2007)

MonarchzMan said:


> There are four-ish populations on Bastimentos. Depending on how you decide to split up the populations, there could be more. At the western side of the island, you have the Cemetery population which is the polymorphic population that is primarily represented in the hobby. There's the Red Frog Beach population at the north-central part of the island that is red to red-orange with small spots. Then at the eastern side of the island, you have the Salt Creek population with red tops, white bellies, and gray-green legs. As best as I can tell, the southern portion of the island is very Solarte-like in appearance. They're all orange (maybe a slightly deeper orange than Solartes) with white toes. These seem to cover much of the southern extent to the island.
> 
> I am not certain on the phenotype of the central island frogs or the frogs directly next to Solarte (although I'm assuming they look very much like Solarte).



oh ok i was mixing them up a bit. sorry my memory was fuzzy! thanks for the info JP. im still going to look through those threads though, the pictures are awesome!

azure89,
i think we already went over the powder blues/greys being the same. if frogs come from the same local then its fine, thats why we were also saying the escudo that are blue are still escudo. and that all the color variants of bastimentos are the same (except salt creek and red frog beach).


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## Philsuma (Jul 18, 2006)

Aguacate:

Cauchero, Tierra Oscura, Darkland, Blau, Cerro Brucho, Buena Esperanza 

?


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## MonarchzMan (Oct 23, 2006)

Philsuma said:


> Aguacate:
> 
> Cauchero, Tierra Oscura, Darkland, Blau, Cerro Brucho, Buena Esperanza
> 
> ?


That's far more a fuzzy relationship than the Bastimentos. Tierra Oscura and Darklands are the same thing (Tierra Oscura means Dark Land in Spanish). Cauchero, while visually are the same, I don't think that they'd be the same given size differences between the populations. Cerro Brujo is probably the same as the Darklands (in fact, in regards to Rich Frye's line, that's where they came from). And I would say that Esperanza are likely a separate population (although, I've found them as close as one mile to an all blue "darklands" population, so I have no idea what's going on there!).

The Aguacate Peninsula is all sorts of weird.


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## skylsdale (Sep 16, 2007)

azure89 said:


> So in the case of "designer" mophs is it acceptable to breed two seperate phenotypes together if they were collected from the same area or would this be considered hybridization?


Mixing together two seperate species is hybridization. Example: breeding together _Dendrobates auratus_ with _D. leucomelas_. 



> For example breeding a grey leg powder blue tinc with a blue leg powder blue tinc, is this ok or frounded upon? because in my opinion they are the same frog if they came from the same locale, they would have bred naturally anyway right?


It depends: if they are in fact from two seperate, isolated populations...then it would be called outcrossing (like mixing a Blue Jeans pumilio with a Bastimentos pumilio...same species, but different populations).

If they are in fact from the same population and the "grey" and "blue" of the legs is just natural variation within the population, then it's not really considered anything...just standard breeding of frogs who naturally mate in the wild.


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## azure89 (Jan 5, 2009)

Thanks that makes sense


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## Roadrunner (Mar 6, 2004)

It`s not a marketing ploy to seperate the prices on blue, red or red and blue escudo. If they were all the same price the blues would`ve all sold, the red would`ve all sold and the red/blue would`ve sold last. They were only split because they are worth different amounts to most people, not that they were supposed to be only bred to like color. And if someone was breeding a blue escudo to a blue escudo that was wc they aren`t line breeding, they are pairing up a pair that could and probably would, for a percentage, breed in nature. To continue only taking the blue offspring(which they`d throw all colors) and further breeding them together. 

The fine spot sky blue azureus occur naturally in breeding non related pairs. I know someone is line breeding for this but i get fssb azureus from my unrelated pairs at about 25-50% from my 2 unrelated pairs. My males are fine spotted and my females are dark blue w/ large spots. So some line breed for this trait but the ones I produce are NOT line bred.



skylsdale said:


> Just to echo what has already been said: Escudo are Escudo are Escudo. To seperate based on phenotype is purely a marketing ploy. The entire population is on an island about 6 miles long by 2 miles wide, 10 miles off the Panamanian mainland. There are no ridges, no permanent streams, no isolating features on the island...and the population is extremely variable with combinations of blue and red, even looking somewhat brownish at times. All the same frog.
> 
> Personally, I'm a lumper when it's best to lump and a splitter when it's best to split.  Like Mike K said earlier, it's very situational and we have to take things on a case-by-base basis. But when we split, or are looking at historical splits in the hobby, I think we need to look at what the motivation was/is for the splitting: how much of it is marketing? How much of it is just an attempt to be the only source of that morph/line?
> 
> And I find it strange the sort of misinformation that tends to get passed along. Take _A. quinquevittatus_, for example: I think the care sheet on here even said that the Tan line of frogs is easier to breed than the Kelley line of frogs? That's interesting considering that they're the same frog! Phil and Todd each ended up with sole suriving frogs from that shipment, and they combined their two frogs and luckily formed a pair which produced many of the frogs currently in the hobby. Exactly how does one justify half of the offspring being easier to breed than the other half of said offspring?


That is probably due to the husbandry practices for each individual(feeding, supplementing, treatment for parasites, health of the breeders, etc.).


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## MonarchzMan (Oct 23, 2006)

frogfarm said:


> It`s not a marketing ploy to seperate the prices on blue, red or red and blue escudo. If they were all the same price the blues would`ve all sold, the red would`ve all sold and the red/blue would`ve sold last. They were only split because they are worth different amounts to most people, not that they were supposed to be only bred to like color. And if someone was breeding a blue escudo to a blue escudo that was wc they aren`t line breeding, they are pairing up a pair that could and probably would, for a percentage, breed in nature. To continue only taking the blue offspring(which they`d throw all colors) and further breeding them together.


It is a marketing ploy to artificially separate a population to get the most money out of them, especially when it was not advertised to say that the all come from the same population and could be bred together. People look at these splits as separation in populations more often than not and will choose to line breed them unknowingly.

Not only that, peoples' preferences are highly variable. Personally, I like the red/blues better than the red (which are really, still red/blue; so one could argue that it's false advertising) or the blues. I'm sure some people like the reds over the other two. Just separating them produces an artificial opinion on what's most valuable to the seller so that the seller can get the most money.


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## skylsdale (Sep 16, 2007)

frogfarm said:


> They were only split because they are worth different amounts to most people, not that they were supposed to be only bred to like color. And if someone was breeding a blue escudo to a blue escudo that was wc they aren`t line breeding, they are pairing up a pair that could and probably would, for a percentage, breed in nature.


Of course "blue" Escudo probably mate with other "blue" Escudo frogs...but no more than "red" ones or "blue/red" ones or "just a bit more red than blue" ones or "red that sort of looks brown but is sort of a rust color with blue legs, except for the right back foot which is also red" ones. Unless you're aware of mate preference studies done with this population that I'm not?

To split frogs and sell them according to perceived value and promote them that way to prospective consumers...if that's not marketing, I don't know what is.



> That is probably due to the husbandry practices for each individual(feeding, supplementing, treatment for parasites, health of the breeders, etc.).


Of course...I just find it strange that the effects of some people's husbandry practices somehow came to characterize the 'natural' traits of an entire captive population of frogs.


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## jubjub47 (Sep 9, 2008)

frogfarm said:


> It`s not a marketing ploy to seperate the prices on blue, red or red and blue escudo. If they were all the same price the blues would`ve all sold, the red would`ve all sold and the red/blue would`ve sold last. They were only split because they are worth different amounts to most people, not that they were supposed to be only bred to like color. And if someone was breeding a blue escudo to a blue escudo that was wc they aren`t line breeding, they are pairing up a pair that could and probably would, for a percentage, breed in nature. To continue only taking the blue offspring(which they`d throw all colors) and further breeding them together.


That's practically the definition of marketing! 

As for the azureus throwing fine spots, it just sounds to me like natural variation within the population and something that we should not be pushing to get at higher percentages than occur naturally. Are those fine spots something that you market seperately?


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## skylsdale (Sep 16, 2007)

jubjub47 said:


> Are those fine spots something that you market seperately?


Speaking in general terms of the hobby at large, "fine spot" and "sky blue" (little-to-no spots) are line-bred frogs that many have produced seperately and sold as such (the origins of which were explained a page or two ago in this thread). Whether or not people are reintroducing those frogs into breeding programs in their collections of standard "Azureus" tincs, who knows...but the tendency of the hobby is to assume that if a frog/morph is being sold a certain way, it must be from an isolated population and that all frogs from that population must look uniformly similar. This is the danger of line-breeding and marketing morphs in this way.


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## jubjub47 (Sep 9, 2008)

skylsdale said:


> Speaking in general terms of the hobby at large, "fine spot" and "sky blue" (little-to-no spots) are line-bred frogs that many have produced seperately and sold as such (the origins of which were explained a page or two ago in this thread). Whether or not people are reintroducing those frogs into breeding programs in their collections of standard "Azureus" tincs, who knows...but the tendency of the hobby is to assume that if a frog/morph is being sold a certain way, it must be from an isolated population and that all frogs from that population must look uniformly similar. This is the danger of line-breeding and marketing morphs in this way.


Hey Ron, I completely agree. My question was if he sells those that he produces from his "normal" azureus that come out with fine spots seperately from the "normal" looking azureus.


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## Roadrunner (Mar 6, 2004)

Have you ever seen me post sky blue or fine spot azureus at a different price? No you haven`t because I don`t, they are just part of the variability of what I produce. I`ll have to look up how they "came to be" as I`ve had mine for over 13 years, some of my first frogs, when we had only got to f2 or f3 so they couldn`t have been that line bred. 

So if making money is the only reason we are getting new morphs of pumilio and paying for the expeditions, what`s wrong w/ making an extra $50 ea for all blue escudo? Do you know how rare blue animals are in nature? So it`s ok to charge more for blue jeans which are rare but not for the few blue escudo that came in? I really wish some of you would open a business so you can get the same mixed signals of people praising you for making these animals available so we can work w/ them and others cursing you for selling blue escudos for a measly $50 more per animal when they aren`t line bred and only the buyer can choose how he/she breeds them.


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## Roadrunner (Mar 6, 2004)

so others should set up their business practices according to only your preferences?
Generally people look for blue animals because of their rarity.



MonarchzMan said:


> It is a marketing ploy to artificially separate a population to get the most money out of them, especially when it was not advertised to say that the all come from the same population and could be bred together. People look at these splits as separation in populations more often than not and will choose to line breed them unknowingly.
> 
> Not only that, peoples' preferences are highly variable. Personally, I like the red/blues better than the red (which are really, still red/blue; so one could argue that it's false advertising) or the blues. I'm sure some people like the reds over the other two. Just separating them produces an artificial opinion on what's most valuable to the seller so that the seller can get the most money.


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## Roadrunner (Mar 6, 2004)

skylsdale said:


> Of course "blue" Escudo probably mate with other "blue" Escudo frogs...but no more than "red" ones or "blue/red" ones or "just a bit more red than blue" ones or "red that sort of looks brown but is sort of a rust color with blue legs, except for the right back foot which is also red" ones. Unless you're aware of mate preference studies done with this population that I'm not?
> 
> To split frogs and sell them according to perceived value and promote them that way to prospective consumers...if that's not marketing, I don't know what is.
> 
> ...


It didn`t come to characterize and entire population. Didn`t you say that kelly and tan line quinqs came from the same pair and that people said tan line were easier to breed than kelly line? I said the different husbandry practices between the 2 individuals is why people think one line is easier to breed than the other even though they are from the same pair of frogs. One sells better/healthier offspring.

It`s not marketing, it`s human nature to think one animal "looks better" than another. The person selling the escudo, the only one who did, why this isn`t vendor feedback I`m confused over, didn`t make people value blue frogs over other colors. Personally I figured the red/blue would throw all colors so _ didn`t want to pay for the blues. But I`m not jealous I couldn`t afford them which is the only reason anyone would care about the price. You can`t make someone breed different looking frogs. I`m sure he told other people than me that they all breed together. If you didn`t know they all breed together maybe you shouldn`t have bought them. Was i line breeding since I only bred blue/red to blue red?_


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## Roadrunner (Mar 6, 2004)

seperating the reds and blues by price is not a marketing ploy, which has bad connotation, like he`s fooling you or tricking you out of your money. It`s strait marketing, asking more for something that is more rare and worth more.


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## Roadrunner (Mar 6, 2004)

Well then people should educate themselves because I`m not "the hobby at large" and I produce, non inbred fine spot azureus as regular azureus. I don`t market them as different because I don`t want to go thru the hassle associated w/ it and I do over 90% wholesale. So when people read this and want to start asking if they could see pics of my azureus so they can pick out the fine spots, don`t bother. You act like there is no market for these morphs and people are "pushing them off" on other people. This is how people naturally are. And, NO, I`m not advocating line breeding, just making observations about the general public. Now I`ll have to read about how the fine spot sky blue "came to be".



skylsdale said:


> Speaking in general terms of the hobby at large, "fine spot" and "sky blue" (little-to-no spots) are line-bred frogs that many have produced seperately and sold as such (the origins of which were explained a page or two ago in this thread). Whether or not people are reintroducing those frogs into breeding programs in their collections of standard "Azureus" tincs, who knows...but the tendency of the hobby is to assume that if a frog/morph is being sold a certain way, it must be from an isolated population and that all frogs from that population must look uniformly similar. This is the danger of line-breeding and marketing morphs in this way.


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## AzureFrog (Feb 3, 2009)

Woooo... did this thread take a turn! I do not think anything said here was meant as a personal attack...

Peace
Shawn


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## skylsdale (Sep 16, 2007)

frogfarm said:


> Well then people should educate themselves because I`m not "the hobby at large" and I produce, non inbred fine spot azureus as regular azureus. I don`t market them as different because I don`t want to go thru the hassle associated w/ it and I do over 90% wholesale. So when people read this and want to start asking if they could see pics of my azureus so they can pick out the fine spots, don`t bother. You act like there is no market for these morphs and people are "pushing them off" on other people. This is how people naturally are. And, NO, I`m not advocating line breeding, just making observations about the general public. Now I`ll have to read about how the fine spot sky blue "came to be".


I know you're not the hobby-at-large, and I specfically chose to speak in those terms so this thread didn't turn into a finger-pointing session or witch hunt. I honestly don't know what frogs you produce and/or how you sell them...but I do know that some people specifically line breed this population into various morphs and sell them that way, so I chose to speak in generalities about some things that do occur in the hobby and let readers/hobbyists decide for themselves how and from whom they want to obtain their frogs. As was just mentioned: none of it was meant as a personal attack, and my language was purposefully meant to prevent one.


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## Philsuma (Jul 18, 2006)

People want what people want....

I used to wonder about all the buzz with the banded Leucs. A lot of people wanted them and became disillusioned when they grew out and the "stripes weren't quite right" and a spot or 2 appeared.

There's a brand new hobbyist on DB right now, basing his first aquisition on colour. He wants a blue and red frog, yada yada.

Sorry for the thread spin....


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## Roadrunner (Mar 6, 2004)

No matter how you word it, if you can`t point out who does and who doesn`t line breed for that trait, your lumping everyone who produces fine spot azureus as line breeders.



skylsdale said:


> I know you're not the hobby-at-large, and I specfically chose to speak in those terms so this thread didn't turn into a finger-pointing session or witch hunt. I honestly don't know what frogs you produce and/or how you sell them...but I do know that some people specifically line breed this population into various morphs and sell them that way, so I chose to speak in generalities about some things that do occur in the hobby and let readers/hobbyists decide for themselves how and from whom they want to obtain their frogs. As was just mentioned: none of it was meant as a personal attack, and my language was purposefully meant to prevent one.


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## MonarchzMan (Oct 23, 2006)

frogfarm said:


> seperating the reds and blues by price is not a marketing ploy, which has bad connotation, like he`s fooling you or tricking you out of your money. It`s strait marketing, asking more for something that is more rare and worth more.


If a person artificially separates a single populations into a variety of traits and sells them on perceived rarity, and does not advertise that they are all individuals found within the same population, then it's a marketing ploy with the negative connotation. Because, heaven forbid, if people knew that the cheap red frogs could throw expensive blue frogs, they would opt for the cheaper ones.

And I can tell you that the blue ones are no more rare than any other Escudo morph, and if anything, the mostly red ones are rarer than any of the other morphs. So given that, why separate the morphs? One reason: to make more money.


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## Roadrunner (Mar 6, 2004)

One could only argue it was false advertising if they didn`t know I got at least 2 that were all red and others that were red w/ silver/white underneath. Unless you know otherwise calling it false advertising would be slander.
Just saying that sounds like vendor feedback for someone you`ve never purchased from.



MonarchzMan said:


> It is a marketing ploy to artificially separate a population to get the most money out of them, especially when it was not advertised to say that the all come from the same population and could be bred together. People look at these splits as separation in populations more often than not and will choose to line breed them unknowingly.
> 
> Not only that, peoples' preferences are highly variable. Personally, I like the red/blues better than the red (which are really, still red/blue; so one could argue that it's false advertising) or the blues. I'm sure some people like the reds over the other two. Just separating them produces an artificial opinion on what's most valuable to the seller so that the seller can get the most money.


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## araceae (Jan 28, 2010)

Pictures of all these different morphs would probably help alot and make this thread better!


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## MonarchzMan (Oct 23, 2006)

frogfarm said:


> One could only argue it was false advertising if they didn`t know I got at least 2 that were all red and others that were red w/ silver/white underneath. Unless you know otherwise calling it false advertising would be slander.
> Just saying that sounds like vendor feedback for someone you`ve never purchased from.


Who said anything about false advertising? It's irresponsible advertising to separate morphs and not say that they come from the same population. I have no doubt that if you advertise a blue and red frog that you have a blue and red frog. But if you advertise a blue and red frog and a blue frog, and don't bother mentioning that they come from the same population, then you're being irresponsible in your advertising.


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## Roadrunner (Mar 6, 2004)

read the second paragraph in your quote. 
Since they put up pics of all the frogs available and there were much fewer blues than blue/red and red then they didn`t find all the blues. Why are you accusing when you didn`t even look at the pics of the frogs available. People picked according to pictures. Blue is a more rare color than red for animals even if they do outnumber any of the other colors. They did tell people they all came from the same population. Just because it wasn`t specifically stated it was implied(all were called escudo de varaguas pumilio , people could infer thru bastis, if they had any background in darts that they were the same island population) and told when people asked. Weren`t people charging different amounts for different colored bastis?


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## Roadrunner (Mar 6, 2004)

They were separated by price, not breeding. Anyone could buy any color they wanted and breed whatever they wanted. Isn`t telling people aout how the populations are set up your department. Why didn`t you start a thread at the time letting people know about the population?



MonarchzMan said:


> If a person artificially separates a single populations into a variety of traits and sells them on perceived rarity, and does not advertise that they are all individuals found within the same population, then it's a marketing ploy with the negative connotation. Because, heaven forbid, if people knew that the cheap red frogs could throw expensive blue frogs, they would opt for the cheaper ones.
> 
> And I can tell you that the blue ones are no more rare than any other Escudo morph, and if anything, the mostly red ones are rarer than any of the other morphs. So given that, why separate the morphs? One reason: to make more money.


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## AzureFrog (Feb 3, 2009)

araceae said:


> Pictures of all these different morphs would probably help alot and make this thread better!


Yes... this would much more helpful than the last 3 pages or so!

Guys... your argument has gotten way too personal and it is not helping anyone! I was really interested in the topic of this thread in the beginning, but just like many other threads, it has just turned into a never ending argument. 

Peace
Shawn


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## MonarchzMan (Oct 23, 2006)

Given that I've been to the island and seen the frogs and have not seen a single all red frog (not to mention that every picture out there of Escudos show blue and red frogs or blue frogs, but certainly not all red), I think that I can say with confidence that advertising them as "red" could be construed as false advertising.

It's good that they told people that they came from the same populations (quite frankly, I find this highly dubious, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt), but not implied is not adequate when working with dendrobatids. Bastimentos has several populations on it, same with Popa, so advertising them to represent the whole island is irresponsible, just as advertising a single population to be separated by population variation is irresponsible. And I've made such comments about it in other threads (for example, the Popa frogs not being adequately described).

By doing so creates these designer morphs that Ron is concerned about.


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## AzureFrog (Feb 3, 2009)

Oh... never mind you are not listening anyway!


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## araceae (Jan 28, 2010)

I Agree!

I am extremely interested since the three frogs I have seem to be extremely variable, I have Citronella, Azureus, and a Leuc. 



AzureFrog said:


> Yes... this would much more helpful than the last 3 pages or so!
> 
> Guys... your argument has gotten way too personal and it is not helping anyone! I was really interested in the topic of this thread in the beginning, but just like many other threads, it has just turned into a never ending argument.
> 
> ...


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## Roadrunner (Mar 6, 2004)

I didn`t say he did, but he is the one doing most of the complaining about how escudos are "marketed". It`s always easier to criticize from behind a computer than to get off your arse and do something about it. Or even start a thread about the population to correct a great injustice... or an assumed knowledge however you want to look at it. 

And he changed the population name from popa to popa N with your info. Just because he didn`t know about the other population your probably thinking that was a "marketing ploy" too. He`s damned if he misses a pop and he`s damned if he doesn`t say they all are from the same population, geez. Maybe you should try to work w/ these people instead of just criticizing.
again this is stated to JP.



AzureFrog said:


> FYI... MonarchzMan did not start this thread!


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## skylsdale (Sep 16, 2007)

frogfarm said:


> No matter how you word it, if you can`t point out who does and who doesn`t line breed for that trait, your lumping everyone who produces fine spot azureus as line breeders.


No I'm not...YOU are in your defensiveness. And the reason I'm not calling people out specifically is because threads quickly degenerate and get shut down when that happens, and I would prefer to have a little more tact than that and continue to have a discussion that could be profitable and from which some folks may benefit. 



> Pictures of all these different morphs would probably help alot and make this thread better!


As much as I like photos, I have to say that I think one of the problems is that all we ever seem to want are pictures...which doesn't really help us all that much if we don't know the story behind them.


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## AzureFrog (Feb 3, 2009)

frogfarm said:


> I didn`t say he did, but he is the one doing most of the complaining about how escudos are "marketed". It`s always easier to criticize from behind a computer than to get off your arse and do something about it. Or even start a thread about the population to correct a great injustice... or an assumed knowledge however you want to look at it.


I edited this right after I wrote it ... but since you brought it up, why are you arguing that point in THIS thread?


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## Roadrunner (Mar 6, 2004)

I apologize, I just can`t stand around when false info is being given by people who don`t know. I read through this whole thread and did not find one statement that lead anyone to believe that ALL fssb azureus weren`t inbred. I saw one vendor being slandered for not writing in BOLD LETTERS on the top of their ad that all escudos could be bred together, by someone who didn`t even inquire about the frogs in the first place trying to make that vendor look bad. Does anyone remember when pumilio only came in as "red, green or blue? I think if anyone were around that long that these practices are 10 fold better than what used to be. 
Does it help to know all fine spot azureus are not inbred? 



AzureFrog said:


> Yes... this would much more helpful than the last 3 pages or so!
> 
> Guys... your argument has gotten way too personal and it is not helping anyone! I was really interested in the topic of this thread in the beginning, but just like many other threads, it has just turned into a never ending argument.
> 
> ...


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## MonarchzMan (Oct 23, 2006)

frogfarm said:


> I apologize, I just can`t stand around when false info is being given by people who don`t know. I read through this whole thread and did not find one statement that lead anyone to believe that ALL fssb azureus weren`t inbred. I saw one vendor being slandered for not writing in BOLD LETTERS on the top of their ad that all escudos could be bred together, by someone who didn`t even inquire about the frogs in the first place trying to make that vendor look bad. Does anyone remember when pumilio only came in as "red, green or blue? I think if anyone were around that long that these practices are 10 fold better than what used to be.
> Does it help to know all fine spot azureus are not inbred?


No names have been mentioned and given that multiple people sell Escudos under the blue, blue/red, red designation, I don't know why you are taking such offense to the discussion. I doubt you'll find many people who will argue that the practices today aren't better than in the past, but better and adequate are two different things.


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## Roadrunner (Mar 6, 2004)

Maybe you can point out to me where you said all fine spots aren`t line bred, this is all I could find from you other then your initial statement that fine spot and sky blue azureus are line bred.


Then there is the "azureus - fine spot" (I'm labeling azureus as a morph/locale, not a species) which is a result of pulling out animals with that trait and then breeding them together.




skylsdale said:


> No I'm not...YOU are in your defensiveness. And the reason I'm not calling people out specifically is because threads quickly degenerate and get shut down when that happens, and I would prefer to have a little more tact than that and continue to have a discussion that could be profitable and from which some folks may benefit.
> 
> 
> 
> As much as I like photos, I have to say that I think one of the problems is that all we ever seem to want are pictures...which doesn't really help us all that much if we don't know the story behind them.


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## skylsdale (Sep 16, 2007)

frogfarm said:


> Maybe you can point out to me where you said all fine spots aren`t line bred, this is all I could find from you other then your initial statement that fine spot and sky blue azureus are line bred.
> 
> "Then there is the "azureus - fine spot" (I'm labeling azureus as a morph/locale, not a species) which is a result of pulling out animals with that trait and then breeding them together."


I would think the average reader would be astute enough to figure out that if people are pulling out animals from the captive population that have this phenotype, then that phenotype is an already present and already naturally occuring variation within the population. The problem comes when those phenotypes are seperated out and then solely bred together.

And I'm talking about all of this in terms of the ethos and praxis of the hobby and those bits of dogmatic misinformation that so easily root themselves within it. Of course this all begins and is continued by specific individuals...but my concern here isn't dealing with those individuals, but rather with the greater issue and allow folks to make purchasing decisions with those individuals (whoever they may or may not be) on their own.


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## thedude (Nov 28, 2007)

wow i didnt get on here all weekend and now i get to read all this? what happened? i read nothing in all of that that should have been offensive to anybody. not only that but no names were mentioned at all.

anyway, if we are going to price rare phenotypes within populations higher than common variations we should start figuring out the new names right now. ball pythons go by blizzard, pastel, blah, blah, blah. apparently thats where escudos are headed. if im buying 3 escudos and want a good representation of the wild population, im not buying 2 red/blues for $300 and a blue one for $350! if thats the case then i owe mark pepper an extra $50 because one of my lowland fants has very blue legs, while the others have white legs.

if i wanted a blue pumilio, id buy a darkland or cauchero.


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## Roadrunner (Mar 6, 2004)

so, why is no one complaining that bastis of different color are different prices?
And no one answered if breeding red/blue to red blue was line breeding. And if blue represents most of the population, as JP said, shouldn`t we try to replicate that frequency by breeding more blues together?
The next time i go to a show and another vendor comes over and buys all my fine spot azureus and puts them on his table for $75 ea and sells them all for that price, I`ll tell him he can`t do that! And in the meantime I`ll continue to loose money. Eventually the only vendors left will be the ones who charge more because, like it or not it`s a business and those that don`t profit go away.
I also can`t wait till there is a frog that comes in that varies from deep purple to brown and someone tries to sell them all for the same price. That will really drive it home to anyone trying to sell animals of different color.
Again I didn`t make people value certain animals over others.
A simple quote such as "SOME people started line breeding for this trait" instead of "people started line breeding for this trait"(meaning all people) and all this couldve been avoided.

And your wording resulting in people shunning all fssb azureus would affect my business, even though it`s , I guess you removed the part about me getting upset over something so trivial, well my business and my frogs aren`t trivial to me. i got upset when people said the green foot leucs were line bred and I take offense to your implications that all fssb azureus are line bred.


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## Roadrunner (Mar 6, 2004)

It`s already happening. Chocolate leucs, yellow bastis, fs azureus, sky blue azureus, lemon drop yellowbacks, koi galacts, albino(lutino) vents, etc.etc.
And I`m supposed to sell my non line bred fine spot azureus as normals or I`ll be shunned?
Lowland fants are extremely variable w/ whites blacks blue etc. If anyone were to charge a higher price for those it would have to be all thru pics, too much work to be worth it. And yes Mark has had complaints because all the animals didn`t look exactly like the one in the pic even though it`s stated that this is a very variable morph. Personally I would not want to deal w/ the extra work but your damned if you do and damned if you don`t charge different prices for variable morphs.



thedude said:


> wow i didnt get on here all weekend and now i get to read all this? what happened? i read nothing in all of that that should have been offensive to anybody. not only that but no names were mentioned at all.
> 
> anyway, if we are going to price rare phenotypes within populations higher than common variations we should start figuring out the new names right now. ball pythons go by blizzard, pastel, blah, blah, blah. apparently thats where escudos are headed. if im buying 3 escudos and want a good representation of the wild population, im not buying 2 red/blues for $300 and a blue one for $350! if thats the case then i owe mark pepper an extra $50 because one of my lowland fants has very blue legs, while the others have white legs.
> 
> if i wanted a blue pumilio, id buy a darkland or cauchero.


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## MonarchzMan (Oct 23, 2006)

frogfarm said:


> so, why is no one complaining that bastis of different color are different prices?
> And no one answered if breeding red/blue to red blue was line breeding. And if blue represents most of the population, as JP said, shouldn`t we try to replicate that frequency by breeding more blues together?
> The next time i go to a show and another vendor comes over and buys all my fine spot azureus and puts them on his table for $75 ea and sells them all for that price, I`ll tell him he can`t do that! And in the meantime I`ll continue to loose money. Eventually the only vendors left will be the ones who charge more because, like it or not it`s a business and those that don`t profit go away.
> I also can`t wait till there is a frog that comes in that varies from deep purple to brown and someone tries to sell them all for the same price. That will really drive it home to anyone trying to sell animals of different color.
> ...


That Bastis haven't been brought into the mix does not mean that they should not be treated the same as the Escudos. The Basti conversation has been done over and over. The majority of Bastimentos frogs in the hobby come from a polymorphic population and should not be separated as Gold dust or Green dust or whatever.

I didn't say that blue represents most of the Escudo population. Even if blue represented 95% of the variability in the population, you should not breed blue to blue in the sense you're talking about because that would lead to line breeding. If the population was 95% blue, then 95% of the breedings in the hobby would likely be blue-blue, but only by random chance. To maintain the allele frequencies in the wild, one would have to ignore phenotype and just breed frogs randomly to keep alleles constant. Anything less than that would yield line breeding.


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## sports_doc (Nov 15, 2004)

Oh Ron, you knew this one would be hard to 'control' didnt you....it's a bucking bronco of thread topics 

I think we need to have these conversations, mainly so that the hobbyists can discover what is, and what isnt a 'natural' morph. How else would it become known?

That said, some frog morphs are debatable....and not everyone will agree with all those discussed.

Lets try and not mention vendors by name [yes, a few are impossible to hide because they are well known and known suppliers of specific morphs]

The 'buyer' can decide on the value of an animal IMO.

If someone has questions, then ask them before they purchase! 

If a buyer wonders if a 'type' is line bred for trait, then ask the seller....ask the board....ask another breeder....then make up your mind. 

IAH I have some Chocolate leucs myself....I like the 'color' 

S


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## skylsdale (Sep 16, 2007)

frogfarm said:


> And your wording resulting in people shunning all fssb azureus would affect my business, even though it`s , I guess you removed the part about me getting upset over something so trivial, well my business and my frogs aren`t trivial to me. i got upset when people said the green foot leucs were line bred and I take offense to your implications that all fssb azureus are line bred.


Yes, I did remove that part of my post because, after thinking about it, wasn't the best comment to make. I realize you have some vested interest in this...but that shouldn't prevent people from being able to talk about it. My interest is in the responsible and longterm captive management of populations and we should be able to talk about these things.

As far as green-footed leucs: as I've said this entire time and clarified in my last post on the issue...the lighter yellow over the black feet (which some people perceive as "green") is a natural variation within the population. However, when people seperate those frogs out and begin breeding them exclusively in order to produce that specific phenotype then yes, it's line breeding. Whether or not YOU do this, I honestly have no idea, Aaron. Do you sell fine-spot azureus with a special label as such, or just as a standard azureus? Do you sell them mixed in and alongside standard forms? Or do you seperate them out and sell them in an isolated manner? By doing the latter I would say you have started the ball rolling for them to be line bred because the average hobbyist is probably going to assume that since they're being sold seperate from standard azureus, they must be a seperate population of azureus in the wild and should be managed that way. When looking at the longterm captive management of this species in the hobby, however, that's not a good direction to go in, and that's when I start getting concerned about line breeding.



sports_doc said:


> Oh Ron, you knew this one would be hard to 'control' didnt you....it's a bucking bronco of thread topics


Of course I knew it's a dicey issue...but was hesitantly hopeful a decent and civil discussion could be created. It was actually going quite well until a couple pages ago. Given the current climate of the thread, I'm sure it's close to gasping its last breath...and if it gets to a point you feel it needs to be shut down, by all means do so. However, I would hope it doesn't get to that point.

I realize not everyone will agree, and part of my hope was to at least put it out there and actually discuss it so folks could make up their own minds about it (which is what I've been saying this entire time)...however, some people (especially newer hobbyists) may not even be aware of all this or that certain lines may be selectively bred, so asking about this may not even be on their radar.


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## Roadrunner (Mar 6, 2004)

I have no problem w/ people talking about it if they use the correct terminology to not paint the picture that all fine spots are line bred(esp if your the director of TWI and part of the ASN team) or accuse certain business of false advertising and shady business practice, even though everyone got to pick their animals from pictures so they weren`t doing any false advertising as you can see the exact animals you`re buying. If a certain morph population is singled out when a bunch of others are overlooked yes I have problems. It`s a thread meant to take things out of perspective.
So the leucs from pumilio.com from 15 years ago wc(my breeders were f? from a specific wc importation where they bred a few wc and produced young and grew up more to group breed so wc/f1s and f2s were the breeding group) are the same locale as the standard leucs from eu even though they are smaller, have a reticulated pattern, have green feet and a shininess that standard leucs don`t have and are smaller than standards and a much deeper bronze/yellow than the standard leucs? You can say w/ certainty that these are the same import/populations?

And no, I sell all my azureus for the same price/size, even though I loose money every show from vendors buying all my finespot azureus and raising the price and getting it. Bad business practice for me that`ll do absolutely no good in the long run. What your trying to do is change human nature and an ingrained value system. You can`t do it thru shunning business it can only be done thru changing the humans who buy from them.



skylsdale said:


> Yes, I did remove that part of my post because, after thinking about it, wasn't the best comment to make. I realize you have some vested interest in this...but that shouldn't prevent people from being able to talk about it. My interest is in the responsible and longterm captive management of populations and we should be able to talk about these things.
> 
> As far as green-footed leucs: as I've said this entire time and clarified in my last post on the issue...the lighter yellow over the black feet (which some people perceive as "green") is a natural variation within the population. However, when people seperate those frogs out and begin breeding them exclusively in order to produce that specific phenotype then yes, it's line breeding. Whether or not YOU do this, I honestly have no idea, Aaron. Do you sell fine-spot azureus with a special label as such, or just as a standard azureus? Do you sell them mixed in and alongside standard forms? Or do you seperate them out and sell them in an isolated manner? By doing the latter I would say you have started the ball rolling for them to be line bred because the average hobbyist is probably going to assume that since they're being sold seperate from standard azureus, they must be a seperate population of azureus in the wild and should be managed that way. When looking at the longterm captive management of this species in the hobby, however, that's not a good direction to go in, and that's when I start getting concerned about line breeding.
> 
> ...


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## Catfur (Oct 5, 2004)

Just because it's a can of worms, doesn't mean it doesn't need opening.


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## Philsuma (Jul 18, 2006)

The inevitable derailment of this thread with business ethics......

Personally, I see no need to clarify or apologize for what amounts to free enterprise and western capitalism.

Now if blantant false information is given - that's another story.

Is it wrong to ask for $50.00 more for a Rich Frye Darklands Pumilio than a 2009 import Cauchero? Not in my book.


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## MonarchzMan (Oct 23, 2006)

Philsuma said:


> Is it wrong to ask for $50.00 more for a Rich Frye Darklands Pumilio than a 2009 import Cauchero? Not in my book.


I think that that's different than what we have been discussing. Frye pumilio come with site data and they are from a completely different population than the Caucheros (6 miles away). It's where sellers would separate intrapopulation variation and ask different prices, thus giving the implication that they are separate populations; especially when you can get hugely variable populations. For example, I visited a population of pumilio that range from blue to red to pink to purple to black all in the same population (sometimes even around the same tree), and if you pulled a black individual and a red individual and sold them separately, people would quickly assume that they are separate populations.

That's where I think that it's unethical.


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## Roadrunner (Mar 6, 2004)

And if there were 9 pairs of blues that were randomly bred to maintain a diversity that is found in the blue individuals of the population? That would be maintaining the allelles found in the blue part of the population, correct? So you`ve studied the populations breeding preferences enough to say all blues don`t PREFER to breed w/ like colors(or any other color for that matter), such as is mentioned in the basti population in a Summers paper? How exactly would that be line breeding if your maintaining a segment of allelles found in that "part" of the population.

And how would you expect the importer to know who prefers to breed w/ who or if like colors throw like colors. Anything he mentioned about who breeds w/ who would be heresay and he couldn`t guarantee blue red frog pairs could throw all red or all blue since he had not bred them let alone any number of different color combinations of pairs. I think your agenda is keeping you from thinking clearly on the amount of information you can expect from any importer or what you can expect any business to take into consideration. If all the blues were the same price people would`ve still bought all the blues first and bred them together leaving the others or someone wouldv`e bought them all at that price to sell them for more than what the importer was charging. You can`t just say if this business conducted itself by my standards that this wouldn`t be a problem. 



MonarchzMan said:


> That Bastis haven't been brought into the mix does not mean that they should not be treated the same as the Escudos. The Basti conversation has been done over and over. The majority of Bastimentos frogs in the hobby come from a polymorphic population and should not be separated as Gold dust or Green dust or whatever.
> 
> I didn't say that blue represents most of the Escudo population. Even if blue represented 95% of the variability in the population, you should not breed blue to blue in the sense you're talking about because that would lead to line breeding. If the population was 95% blue, then 95% of the breedings in the hobby would likely be blue-blue, but only by random chance. To maintain the allele frequencies in the wild, one would have to ignore phenotype and just breed frogs randomly to keep alleles constant. Anything less than that would yield line breeding.


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## Roadrunner (Mar 6, 2004)

And you`re business would soon be full of the brown or black frogs that you couldn`t sell, which is why you don`t have a business. Which is why I hate it when people talk about money/business if they don`t have one. unless of course you have some way around this that you`d like to share? If you don`t charge more for the nice ones you`ll eventually have to charge less for the not as nice ones. If you don`t take that into consideration, you won`t be in business long. Which is why leucs are generally less than azureus and auratus are usually less than leucs, and there is the variation of prices you see in auratus. 
Which is why lemon drop yellowbacks used to be much cheaper than yellow yellowbacks and almost fell out of the hobby and are now more expensive because they are rare.



MonarchzMan said:


> I think that that's different than what we have been discussing. Frye pumilio come with site data and they are from a completely different population than the Caucheros (6 miles away). It's where sellers would separate intrapopulation variation and ask different prices, thus giving the implication that they are separate populations; especially when you can get hugely variable populations. For example, I visited a population of pumilio that range from blue to red to pink to purple to black all in the same population (sometimes even around the same tree), and if you pulled a black individual and a red individual and sold them separately, people would quickly assume that they are separate populations.
> 
> That's where I think that it's unethical.


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## skylsdale (Sep 16, 2007)

frogfarm said:


> I have no problem w/ people talking about it if they use the correct terminology to not paint the picture that all fine spots are line bred(esp if your the director of TWI and part of the ASN team) or accuse certain business of false advertising and shady business practice, even though everyone got to pick their animals from pictures so they weren`t doing any false advertising as you can see the exact animals you`re buying. If a certain morph population is singled out when a bunch of others are overlooked yes I have problems. It`s a thread meant to take things out of perspective.


Aaron, I'm not going to continue this argument with you. Although this issue does relate to vendors, etc...it was never specifically aimed at any and the vast majority of it has dealt with diversity of populations in the wild and what may or may not be signs of natural phenotypic variation or completely seperate populations. I have specifically not mentioned any vendors, and have even made comments that urge people from pointing fingers or mention specific vendors in order that it may continue constructively. It's a complicated issue, but as Catfur said, I thought it was one worth discussing (or a can worth opening). Part of a free market is allowing people to advertise and market how they want...but the other part is being able to provide information in a safe and open way for consumers to make educated purchases. Both should be allowed.

Also, just because I am the director of TWI and a participant in the ASN doesn't mean every opinion of mine is the opinion of TWI. I'm still an autonomous person and hobbyist trying to figure out the best possible way to keep/manage amphibians. TWI is managed by an Executive Committee and various other groups who together decide the policies of the organization and its programs.

As far as focusing on certain morphs and neglecting others, I started this by asking folks to list possible "designer" morphs...and through that listing we've discovered a bit more which ones are more line-bred than others, which ones actually aren't, etc. If anything this thread was meant to actually put things in perspective and obtain the larger story behind some of these morphs/populations...not the other way around.

You can continue to argue this point--that's fine and it's part of the freedom of the forum--but that wasn't the purpose of this thread or the direction it took until you stepped in, and I really don't have the time/energy to continue beating this issue into oblivion. But please allow people the freedom to discuss aspects of the issue without jumping on their backs about it. If there is valid and obvious mud-slinging regarding certain vendors, I can understand getting curbing the discussion...but as another poster recently said: they read through the entire thread and didn't see a single name posted or any evidence that a specific vendor was being singled out.


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## MonarchzMan (Oct 23, 2006)

frogfarm said:


> And if there were 9 pairs of blues that were randomly bred to maintain a diversity that is found in the blue individuals of the population? That would be maintaining the allelles found in the blue part of the population, correct? So you`ve studied the populations breeding preferences enough to say all blues don`t PREFER to breed w/ like colors(or any other color for that matter), such as is mentioned in the basti population in a Summers paper? How exactly would that be line breeding if your maintaining a segment of allelles found in that "part" of the population.


Except there is no blue part of the population. It is an intermixed in a red/blue population. I've studied these frogs enough to tell you that, if it is a pumilio within the same population, it doesn't really care about what the other frog looks like. Having done the mate choice experiments, I can tell you that preference is rather questionable because it involved quantifying what we perceive to be important behavior in mating, and I can tell you that probably half of the time the female wasn't even interested in either of the males. The problem with those experiments is that it uses biased frogs (if a frog sees nothing but orange frogs, then chances are, it's going to be attracted to orange frogs).

The problem lies in the fact that even if blues prefer to breed with blues, we don't know what other factors play into choice (for example, hue of blue or how much red is allowable before it's a turn off). So you cannot make the artificial selection choices by simply saying that blues like blues because mate choice is far more complex than that.



> And how would you expect the importer to know who prefers to breed w/ who or if like colors throw like colors. Anything he mentioned about who breeds w/ who would be heresay and he couldn`t guarantee blue red frog pairs could throw all red or all blue since he had not bred them let alone any number of different color combinations of pairs. I think your agenda is keeping you from thinking clearly on the amount of information you can expect from any importer or what you can expect any business to take into consideration. If all the blues were the same price people would`ve still bought all the blues first and bred them together leaving the others or someone wouldv`e bought them all at that price to sell them for more than what the importer was charging. You can`t just say if this business conducted itself by my standards that this wouldn`t be a problem.


Importers contribute to the problem by artificially separating populations based on color or other phenotypic differences. That is where the problem starts and it's a very easy problem to fix. If buyers choose to ignore the fact that there is a lot of intrapopulation variation and choose to line breed, then the fault lies with them (after all, we do still have people who think it's okay to hybridize species). But if sellers are not first advertising intrapopulation variation, how can buyers know that there is variation and that blue frogs can breed with red and blue frogs? It's important that both sellers and buyers be responsible, but how many times has a buyer asked you if there is a huge amount of variation in the frog morph they're buying?



> And you`re business would soon be full of the brown or black frogs that you couldn`t sell, which is why you don`t have a business. Which is why I hate it when people talk about money/business if they don`t have one. unless of course you have some way around this that you`d like to share? If you don`t charge more for the nice ones you`ll eventually have to charge less for the not as nice ones. If you don`t take that into consideration, you won`t be in business long. Which is why leucs are generally less than azureus and auratus are usually less than leucs, and there is the variation of prices you see in auratus.
> Which is why lemon drop yellowbacks used to be much cheaper than yellow yellowbacks and almost fell out of the hobby and are now more expensive because they are rare.


For one, I don't have a business because I'm not in the position to have one right now. When I establish myself, then maybe I will. But right now, life is too volatile for me to have something constant like a business. I can't really run a business if I'm away doing research three months of the year during summers, then teaching abroad in the winters for a month. Maybe you should try that and tell me how your business goes?

But that said, if I ran a business, I wouldn't really have to worry about black and brown frogs because A. there are not many APOSEMATIC poison dart frogs out there that are those colors and B. there's no reason to charge hundreds of dollars for a frog. 

Azureus are more than leucs which are more than auratus because of their ability to breed, not because of "lesser quality." Auratus breed like rabbits all the time, so they saturate the market pretty easily. Leucs are more seasonal, but still breed somewhat regularly. And azureus often have issues with SLS and fit offspring. It has little to do with how they look, but mostly to do with how they breed. 

If your logic held, then auratus would be rare compared to leucs compared to azureus, but we actually see the opposite. Auratus are incredibly popular.


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## thedude (Nov 28, 2007)

frogfarm said:


> And yes Mark has had complaints because all the animals didn`t look exactly like the one in the pic even though it`s stated that this is a very variable morph. Personally I would not want to deal w/ the extra work but your damned if you do and damned if you don`t charge different prices for variable morphs.


for the record, i said the lowland thing as a joke. i am very happy that all of my frogs from mark had some variation. in fact, im pairing up an ugly(in my opinion) fant with one that i do like very much because i want variation in my offspring like there is in nature. if i had escudos the ones id be breeding together wouldnt look the same either.

anyway aaron, i dont think anyone is going to shun you for selling skye blue azureus different than standard azureus. nor do i know where you came up with that idea from this thread, as i never saw anything on that. the purpose of this thread was to make people aware that certain "morphs" are actually just phenotypes of a population or to show what "morphs" have been line bred and are now designer morphs. so even if SOME people(notice im not saying everyone) do price them differently, the purpose of this thread was to show the buyers they are the same and should be bred as such.


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## Roadrunner (Mar 6, 2004)

and the greenfoot leucs? 
I am still trying to discuss it and you and JP are the only people I`ve said anything to. to have you clarify your points.
These are all things your going to have to hear when you advocate anything that imposes restrictions/changes on the way people charge for or breed animals. I`m not saying I don`t agree w/ you, somewhat. I differ in that I should be able to choose what I want to sell my animals for as long as I say they are just considered better looking azureus and not a seperate population. I also think it`s up to the consumer to educate themselves if they ever plan on breeding frogs. That`s the least you owe the animals. It`s not up to the importer to supply you everything you need to know to breed your frogs. Unless you specifically ask and they absolutely know the answer.


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## Roadrunner (Mar 6, 2004)

Not a problem, that just brought a situation up that proves my point. if you don`t think that practice would be shunned by anyone just read any of jp`s posts. No harm no foul. Jp is the only one who offends me and Ron, I just want to be clear, I`m not offended. I just want others who don`t have business to be able to just get a glimpse that there is another side and many more fold customers who don`t think anything like this thread. If they do these things and donate to conservation the extra they make which is worse? Line breeding since some jerk will want them and donating the money or not line breeding and not donating towards the conservation of the frogs habitat? I have my answer but dont know if anyone else would see it that way.
I`m not saying anyone does donate the extra from those price differences just wondering.


thedude said:


> for the record, i said the lowland thing as a joke. i am very happy that all of my frogs from mark had some variation. in fact, im pairing up an ugly(in my opinion) fant with one that i do like very much because i want variation in my offspring like there is in nature. if i had escudos the ones id be breeding together wouldnt look the same either.
> 
> anyway aaron, i dont think anyone is going to shun you for selling skye blue azureus different than standard azureus. nor do i know where you came up with that idea from this thread, as i never saw anything on that. the purpose of this thread was to make people aware that certain "morphs" are actually just phenotypes of a population or to show what "morphs" have been line bred and are now designer morphs. so even if SOME people(notice im not saying everyone) do price them differently, the purpose of this thread was to show the buyers they are the same and should be bred as such.


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## Roadrunner (Mar 6, 2004)

Hahaha, you keep thinking that! Green auratus are popular because they are cheap, what most people start with. And that`s why there are sooo many black auratus around, right? Not because they are hard to breed but because they are BLACK. People pay more for azureus because they are in demand more than any other frog because of their color. My azureus and leucs bred just as much as any auratus or other tinc I`ve ever had. And you know this because you`ve bred all these frogs before? Man you are so offbase. 

Oh wow, aposematic, big words!! Again since you`ve never imported frogs you`d know that no frogs should be sold for over 100$ because you`ve bred them before, imported them and know the permit costs, shipping and inspection fees let alone getting a guide or managing a facility, or choice d) NONE OF THE ABOVE.

And where do you think some, if not a big percent of donations to conservation come from? If all frogs are $10ea where will the donations come from? I don`t have any info on that but something you should find out before you say no one should charge $X for frogs.



MonarchzMan said:


> For one, I don't have a business because I'm not in the position to have one right now. When I establish myself, then maybe I will. But right now, life is too volatile for me to have something constant like a business. I can't really run a business if I'm away doing research three months of the year during summers, then teaching abroad in the winters for a month. Maybe you should try that and tell me how your business goes?
> 
> But that said, if I ran a business, I wouldn't really have to worry about black and brown frogs because A. there are not many APOSEMATIC poison dart frogs out there that are those colors and B. there's no reason to charge hundreds of dollars for a frog.
> 
> ...


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## decev (Dec 3, 2009)

I just want to say one thing from the "little guy" perspective, who doesn't have much experience but is still interested in keeping and someday breeding dart frogs...

I wouldn't mind paying more for a sky blue azureus if that was my thing. But I would like to know that they belong to the same population. If they are going to be separated on a website, there should be something else there to tell me that the separation is based on looks alone, and that the populations should be mixed together, not kept separate. I know of at least one unnamed and unmentioned here website where there they are listed separately with no other qualifying information. Maybe you get more info when you order... I don't know.

I agree that the buyer should be responsible when buying... but so should the seller. Listing them as two groups with no other info is mildly irresponsible.

Long story short...
Different prices for non-line bred "designer" morphs: fine
Listing them as separate entities for sale without extra info: bad

Also, knowing that the sky blue azureus aren't a real morph but just a color variation, I'd be inclined to believe that they are line bred if I see them on a site unless I'm told otherwise.


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## MonarchzMan (Oct 23, 2006)

frogfarm said:


> Hahaha, you keep thinking that! Green auratus are popular because they are cheap, what most people start with. And that`s why there are sooo many black auratus around, right? Not because they are hard to breed but because they are BLACK. People pay more for azureus because they are in demand more than any other frog because of their color. My azureus and leucs bred just as much as any auratus or other tinc I`ve ever had. And you know this because you`ve bred all these frogs before? Man you are so offbase.


Simple economics of supply and demand. High supply means low demand, so cheap prices. There are tons of auratus out there because they breed well. And they end up being cheap as a result. If pumilio bred like auratus do, their price would be down to auratus levels. I know these things because I have plenty of friends who breed these frogs (not to mention my own experiences). Again, if your argument held, they would be priced on color, not abundance.



> Oh wow, aposematic, big words!! Again since you`ve never imported frogs you`d know that no frogs should be sold for over 100$ because you`ve bred them before, imported them and know the permit costs, shipping and inspection fees let alone getting a guide or managing a facility, or choice d) NONE OF THE ABOVE.


I actually know quite a bit about the import process than you, I can assure you. I would guess more than you do. But let's examine your argument for a second in that it's expensive to import. Pumilio and auratus come in on the same shipment very often. Why is it we don't see $300 auratus? This is just dealing with the imported animals, with no consideration of what's in the hobby (as is often done since new imports are new blood). If we saw imported pumilio and auratus priced the same (or even nearly the same), then I'd concede that point, but we don't.



> And where do you think some, if not a big percent of donations to conservation come from? If all frogs are $10ea where will the donations come from? I don`t have any info on that but something you should find out before you say no one should charge $X for frogs.


So you're saying that every $300 pumilio has a portion of money going back to conservation? Maybe I missed those advertisements...

Now, we are all acutely aware that you have some sort of beef with me, and whatever, it doesn't bother me at all, but if you have issues with me or my thoughts about business ethics, I would suggest making a new thread like Ron had suggested or PMing me because your attacks on me are getting tiresome. I and others would appreciate you not continuing to hijack the thread.

In regards to designer frogs, artificially separating frogs without information indicating such a split is creating designer frogs and irresponsible.


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## jubjub47 (Sep 9, 2008)

Philsuma said:


> The inevitable derailment of this thread with business ethics......
> 
> Personally, I see no need to clarify or apologize for what amounts to free enterprise and western capitalism.
> 
> ...


I think the point trying to be made is that while people may value the animal more, it is important to also have it known to buyers that these animals can and should be bred together. While in an ideal world the buyer would be informed before purchasing, there is also some responsibility on the sellers part to make sure this information is relayed to the buyer. Withholding information whether the intent is there or not is just as harmful. There is a lot to be said for the breeder that goes out of his way to inform their customer to their utmost ability to ensure their success with their animals.

In the example of the escudos, if I as a buyer knew that blue offspring could be conceived by red/blue parents I may lean towards the cheaper frogs and wait for the offspring. I think there are enough people out there that would also feel that way and over time you would see the demand on these frogs drop the prices back down to level terms.

Aaron, you say you're losing money to people reselling your animals. That seems like something you could fix on your own and not need to complain about in here. Nobody is forcing you to sell to your competitors at the shows.


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## kyle1745 (Feb 15, 2004)

Ok all lets get back to the topic, and I'm not sure we need any more rants on value or business models as they have been beat to death. Agree to disagree and get back to the topic. Value is a simple concept and really not reason to debate it to death. Anything is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it... No more, No less....


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## Woodsman (Jan 3, 2008)

Here's my two cents. I hope there will come a day when the hobbyists who love the frogs more than the money they can make off those frogs will come together and drive all the profiteers out of the hobby (it is a "hobby", isn't it?) If the frogs were value-less, would we be arguing quite so strongly about this topic?

There must be a better way for some of these guys to male a buck (comment NOT directed toward anyone in particular).

Good luck, Richard.


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## PumilioTurkey (Feb 25, 2010)

300-350$ for Pumilio?

wow, I'm happy that I live in Europe...


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## markpulawski (Nov 19, 2004)

PumilioTurkey said:


> 300-350$ for Pumilio?
> 
> wow, I'm happy that I live in Europe...


These were the original Escudo prices, and they sold. Benedicta $400 and they sell. Batches of mostly male Histo and Sylvatica $500 - $600 and they sell.
It truely is supply and demand, if you don't want, don't buy, people value frogs for rarity, effort to acquire, difficulty of breeding & rearing offspring, all of which is fine in my book. If I want it bad enough I will try to get it, sometimes that is not good enough.
As for designer frogs, when a large group of WC Azureus showed up in the early 90's I got some that had large black spots, when I saw the more fine spotted lighter blue ones that is what i wanted....I would have paid more, for the same frog that took the same effort to acquire. Right or wrong most others would as well, but these are naturally occuring traits. Line breeding for several generations to set this trait is wrong in my estimation as it diminishes the species overall. I would value a fine spot much higher from a random breeding, like Aaron mentioned than from a line breeding project, which may be difficult but goes back to what Shawn said...talk to your breeder, find out what you are getting. Common sense should prevail but emotions run high in this hobby...and to that i say good for all of us.
mark


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## Jellyman (Mar 6, 2006)

Hobbies are only driven if someone can make a profit doing so. If the day ever comes that money cannot be made on this hobby then it will fade away into a distant memory. If retailers cannot turn a profit on the animals or the supplies then who will everyone buy them from. Who will produce a product if there is no profit. Somewhere in the chain of events someone is making a profit.


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## Peter Keane (Jun 11, 2005)

zBrinks said:


> I would hesitate to call D. leucomelas 'fine spot/microspot/whatever' a line bred morph. From what I can tell, several localities of leucomelas exist in the wild that display finer spots, and the 'fine spot' leucs in the hobby may just be a representative of one of those populations. I know that my fine spots have a slightly different call than my 'nominats', just as different as my 'bandeds' or 'green foots'.
> 
> I also came across a frogger selling F2 of what he was calling 'fine spot sky blue' azureus - supposedly a lighter blue, almost no spot azureus from a 1984 import. They appeared a little larger than most adult azureus I've seen, and started life looking relatively normal, getting lighter and losing spots with age. The amount of spotting did not seem to be linked to males, as in the 100% known line bred fine spot trait. Has anyone else heard of these guys?


I wrote an article in TFH's magazine (November 1988) on this very issue. I was one of the orginal recipients of that first importation of Azureus from Holland along with a few of my buddies from the now defunct I.S.S.D (International Society for the Study of Dendrobatids). These were hand delivered from the breeder in Holland and through the years I have noticed that most Azureus bred and after several generations the legs were getting very dark. I noticed this with tinctorius as well. I ran my own study to breed the lightest azureus (finest spots) with another and continued to get offspring with even finer spots and lighter blue. (not every frog was lighter with finer spots, most morphed to a normal phase). I actually had a few in 1991 that had no spots. So, I achieved my goal of a "true" no spot / pure sky blue frog. I did not notice a "huge" difference in size but looking at my original azureus and my sky blue babies as adults they were I would say 10% larger. These would then be found as a possibity in nature. 

Peter Keane


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## Peter Keane (Jun 11, 2005)

markpulawski said:


> These were the original Escudo prices, and they sold. Benedicta $400 and they sell. Batches of mostly male Histo and Sylvatica $500 - $600 and they sell.
> It truely is supply and demand, if you don't want, don't buy, people value frogs for rarity, effort to acquire, difficulty of breeding & rearing offspring, all of which is fine in my book. If I want it bad enough I will try to get it, sometimes that is not good enough.
> As for designer frogs, when a large group of WC Azureus showed up in the early 90's I got some that had large black spots, when I saw the more fine spotted lighter blue ones that is what i wanted....I would have paid more, for the same frog that took the same effort to acquire. Right or wrong most others would as well, but these are naturally occuring traits. Line breeding for several generations to set this trait is wrong in my estimation as it diminishes the species overall. I would value a fine spot much higher from a random breeding, like Aaron mentioned than from a line breeding project, which may be difficult but goes back to what Shawn said...talk to your breeder, find out what you are getting. Common sense should prevail but emotions run high in this hobby...and to that i say good for all of us.
> mark


Please keep this in mind when breeding or attempting to breed. D. lehmanni $12.99, granuliferus $25, reticulatus $25, bulls-eye histrionicus $12, red-faced histrionicus $25, blue jean pumilio $20, atelopus $14.99, glass frogs $6, A. spurrelli $15. these were all prices of some of the frogs back in the day that are near impossible to get now at prices that are 10-20 even 30x what they were and get this.. Azureus was $150-$200 per when it first arrived and tincs were the "big" frog to have at $35 and auratus $20-$25 .. We just didn't have enough resources to get these others established in the hobby in numbers needed to support this hobby (really an obsession or an addiction) .. now, Once established, azureus can be had for as little as $25, tincs are slightly up and auratus are about the same as they were like 20-25 years ago.. keeping the gene pool diverse is very necessary. The resources are there with this and other boards, information is spread within a day so those who are lucky enough to own any of these rarer "high end" frogs use these tools and get these frogs established. It would be such a waste to have a couple of $400-$500 frogs just in a tank with nothing to offer. 

Peter Keane


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