# Inferalanis confusion



## jubjub47 (Sep 9, 2008)

I think I've actually read every post on DB archives about alanis and inferalanis over the past month or so. Has there to this point been any clarification as to whether or not these two morphs are indeed two morphs? I know that people seem to see a few minor differences at times in them, but that's the case with several other species and morphs. I've read that the "infer" tag was put onto a later importation of these frogs to keep them distinguished, but are they really different? I also know that several hobbyist call the infer morph flat out alanis and I'm sure that they have been mixed so much that many alanis are really "infer" or crosses. Has this hit a point that people have given up and just decided to agree to disagree and keep both morphs labeled as they are and just leave it at that? I'm really interested in everyone's opinions.


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## littlefrog (Sep 13, 2005)

Actually, since my 'inferalanis' are breeding like rabbits right now I'd also like some clarification here. From the pictures I haven't been able to tell a difference, myself. I think you are probably right that if they were two morphs to begin with they have probably been interbred in the hobby.

Rob


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## evolvstll (Feb 17, 2007)

From what I have been told by an individual that was involved with past tinc imports is that they are two distinct morphs. PM and I can share what I know.. 
Two big differences I have seen, infers are larger and tend to contain more orange to yellow markings
Littlefrog: if those are the pair you got from me.......they came from Stewart and Robbster as both inferalanis.

Jason


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## melissa68 (Feb 16, 2004)

They are considered 2 morphs. Since they were imported as two morphs keep them separate.


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## Marcus (Apr 18, 2004)

I my opinion it's all the same. We don't use the name Inferalanis over here in europe. The difference is also a bit strange...more yellow and orange markings?
I saw/found several populations in Surinam and they were always mixed within the population...larger and smaller animals, animals with orange marking and animals with yellow markings..some had lot of blue markings in the legs and some less.....
All the same in my opinion. Also the exporter who shipped them to USA and Europa doesn't know the name Inferlanis..only Alanis (the name of his daughter).


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## littlefrog (Sep 13, 2005)

Jason,

Yes, this is the pair I got from you. Took a while to get going, but now they just won't stop... I'll make a note of the lineage information (I'm sure you told me before, I just never wrote it down).

Rob


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## jubjub47 (Sep 9, 2008)

Jason and Marcus both bring up completely differing opinions that both could have merit. That's what is confusing me about this. If the exporter of the frogs says they are collected from the same population why are hobbyist ignoring this? Its been shown in other frogs that variations can and will appear within populations. Why is it that selective breeding seems to be what is going on with these frogs, but is typically frowned upon within the hobby.


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## rmelancon (Apr 5, 2004)

The basis of my wanting to keep them separate was looking at a tank full of the original WC Alanis next to a tank full of original WC Inferalanis. Though clearly very similar, the Inferalanis, in particular females, were way bigger frogs. The inferalanis were also more brightly colored. Marcus, no doubt they were probably part of a larger population of very similar looking frogs. Just like with continuous populations of say ventrimaculatus where on one side you have yellow, in the middle orange and on the other side red, in the case of Alanis Inferalanis perhaps on one end you have smaller paler yellow and on the other larger more orange/yellow.

I have no doubt that people have since crossed the morphs, which contributes to the fact that now there is less distinction. Plus in my experience CB animals tend to lose the bright colors of the WC parents, particularly reds and oranges. So looking at a juvenile inferalanis and a juvenile alanis you would not see any difference.

My whole point in wanting the separation was so that 10 years down the road (ie today) when my WCs die (some have and some are still alive) I can find Inferalanis and not Alanis, because the original WC inferalanis in my opinion were a nicer looking animal than the original WC alanis that I saw side by side.

Since it happens anyway, if you want to cross inferalanis and alanis please just call these crosses alanis. I hope enough people keep the inferalanis separate so that the nice big frogs that I saw in 98 can return to my collection in the future.


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## rmelancon (Apr 5, 2004)

jubjub47 said:


> ... Why is it that selective breeding seems to be what is going on with these frogs, but is typically frowned upon within the hobby.


Not everyone frowns on selective breeding. The reality is that we keep frogs in fish tanks for our own pleasure. Inbreeding is part of these animals natural history anyway.


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## SNDF (Mar 23, 2006)

Just to clear up the confusion a little. Marcus, from Tropical Experience is the gentleman posting about observing the Alanis/Inferalanis in the wild.
He has traveled extensively throughout Suriname and I consider him an expert about the true morphs of the tinctorious and many other dart frogs.

SNDF was the first to import the Alanis in 1999. We also received a shipment of what I thought were Alanis later that year. The exporter Vincent Leckie
pointed out to us that these larger ones he had sent us were collected by the same Indians that had collected the Alanis but these came from a different area.

All of the Alanis we had gotten before (100's) all had different amounts of orange on their head. Always orange! All of the new import females were much larger
than any of the Alanis we had received before. The males were similar in size. 50% of these new imports had yellow on the crown of their heads. We kept them
separated from the Alanis.

Several months later another imported here in Broward County started imported in the same frog. They named it the "Inferalanis".

Rob Melancon came by out facility (our house at the time) and saw for himself the Alanis and the Inferalanis. He took home several pairs of the Infer.
So when he refers to the two morphs as separate morphs it's by his own observation here at SNDF.

All of this being said, I have to go with observations made by Marcus in Suriname. That he did not see any difference in the morphs that he observed in the wild.

I would recommend that we keep the morphs separate. The pairs we are working with are bred by morph and we see a difference in them. Some of the pairs are WC from our imports in early 2001.

Regards:

Marcus Breece
SNDF


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## markpulawski (Nov 19, 2004)

Marcus & Marcus it's so nice when first hand knowledge gets to our board and not a second hand story (though second hand stories contribute quite a bit). Now if the 2 of you could get to the bottom of the Giant Orange/Regina debate and possibly (though not brought up yet) the grey leg/blue leg Powder Blue debate we could all rest a little easier. So nice to see you 2 show up in conversation!!!


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## evolvstll (Feb 17, 2007)

markpulawski said:


> Marcus & Marcus it's so nice when first hand knowledge gets to our board and not a second hand story (though second hand stories contribute quite a bit). Now if the 2 of you could get to the bottom of the Giant Orange/Regina debate and possibly (though not brought up yet) the grey leg/blue leg Powder Blue debate we could all rest a little easier. So nice to see you 2 show up in conversation!!!


Guys thanks for posting the great information on the inferalanis/alanis question. Marcus what you posted is exactly what Eric had told me about them.

With the Powder Blues - grey vs blues. I have a breeding pair of Powders, both with grey legs which produce both grey and blue offspring. The offspring have various ranges of greys and blues. Now since I do not know the lineage of these parents, I cannot tell you if they come from parents that were once crossed. If someone has blues which always produce blues or greys which alway produce grey offspring that may help.


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## jubjub47 (Sep 9, 2008)

That is a lot of good information on these guys. As far as head coloring, is there a definitive pattern for the yellow/orange that is morph dependant? I've got two that look like my avatar as far as the yellow pattern, but I was sold another from a different individual that has a solid yellow head.


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## rmelancon (Apr 5, 2004)

jubjub47 said:


> That is a lot of good information on these guys. As far as head coloring, is there a definitive pattern for the yellow/orange that is morph dependant? I've got two that look like my avatar as far as the yellow pattern, but I was sold another from a different individual that has a solid yellow head.


As I said in an earlier message, colors, particularly reds, yellows and oranges tend to fade in CB animals unless supplemented. In addition, you can "over" supplement and make a yellow frog more orange. Patterns are not distinctive in either case and are quite variable. Bottom line is that you can't rely on looks at all in this case, only lineage obtained from the person you got the frogs from. If that is questionable or not available then just treat them as alanis.


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## sports_doc (Nov 15, 2004)

Nice thread. Very good to get some real 'source' info on DB. 

I'd like to post my experience keeping Alanis. I had one pair, shown below, and only this pair. No other tincs at the time other then Regina growing out [no adults]. I had this pair of Alanis for 2.5 years, and they produced 50-75 frolets, all identical to the ones below. I sold the pair 2 years ago when I moved.

While the offspring were very much along the Alanis lines, the parents were surprisingly black and white.

They came from a respected DB sponsor, as a 12 mo old prob pair Alanis, produced from his parent stock and grown up before sale.

Anyway, guess what I am saying is that we may rely much to much on the 'look' of animals in order to label them...when we really should stick to import/export info, and whenever able, locale known lineages. IMO. 

Alanis froglets 2-3 mo old.










And the parents. Single pair. Not a lick of color in them. Very "Olemarie" like for sure. 










Best,


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## RedEyeTroyFrog (Jan 25, 2008)

mostly all of the alanis i see have way more yellow that the one male i have, and they seem to have more blue as well, the marking of the blue is also different? Mine is from Aaronsfrogfarm, purchased in 2005(spring) so im not exactly sure on the lineage, but here is what he looks like
...
i never handle my frogs but i had to in this situation to show the markings, he was very stubborn today


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## jubjub47 (Sep 9, 2008)

That's really interesting Shawn. Those froglets really look nothing like the parents other than the legs. Were you feeding them any types of color foods that may have affected the coloring? As you said, the parents don't really look that much like the typical alanis and the froglets do so I guess maybe the parents had some sort of deficiencies that stunted the color development? Another question/observation on these guys in general is the head coloring. I see lots of pics of these guys when I search and see about 50% have the nose spot and the eye spots of yellow and the others have a sort of mask type pattern of yellow. Am I seeing younger frogs with the mask that haven't grown out of that stage or can that be variable?


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## jubjub47 (Sep 9, 2008)

That's a pretty unique looking alanis Troy. Other than the faint blue on the legs they are basically black. One of mine has spots instead of the normal lines down the back, I hand picked him cause I thought it would make it identifiable. Hopefully it looks unique like yours cause I think that is a really nice looking frog.


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## RedEyeTroyFrog (Jan 25, 2008)

thanks, i think so too, the other alanis that i got from aaron looked a lil more like the other but still not as yellow or blue, but wasnt "spotted" like this one


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## Marcus (Apr 18, 2004)

Well most of the time the Alanis offspring come on land with intens colour. Also the brasil's..often the head is orange and the older they get the yellower (less orange) it will become.

I find it diificult to use pictures because the flashlight is 'destroying' the exact colour. Especially with yellow..all the frogs look the same. When you see them walking around on the forestfloor with (direct) sunlight you can see clearly that they look different. Some are orange and some are yellow. 

I like to know something about size difference in the females. What is the size of the female Alanis and "InferAlanis"?










some notes on the pics;
1) no i did not exported/imported these frogs, we catched them to observe them, for example how many males and females.
2) the white little 'things' you see are termites.


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## Marcus (Apr 18, 2004)

About the other two morphs...maybe better to start another topic about it?

Regina vs Giant Orange
There is also no difference between Giant Orange and Regina in my opinion. We saw (found in FG) animals with blue and without blue on the belly and legs. As far as i know they were exported from NL to the USA as Regina. The importer prefered the name Giant Orange and start selling them under that name. We don't use that name over here. We use the name Regina and in the USA it's Giant Orange.

Powderblue's. grey vs blue legs
Never understood it exactly with the names. In the usa the name is Powderblue over here in NL we say grijspoot (greyleg) and in Germany they say graubeiner (greyleg). Why is that? Why didn't we use the name poederblauw (=powderblue) or why didn't they use in the usa the name greylegs? Maybe the most animals that were export (for the first time) had more blueish legs in the usa and more greyish in Europe?
Last year i saw powderblue's in their habitat..some had grey legs some had blue within the same population...


Hope you can get a good sleep now.... because i'm terrible singer..especially with goodnightsongs ;-)


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## Julio (Oct 8, 2007)

got any mopre pics of wild frogs!! those are cool.


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## jubjub47 (Sep 9, 2008)

Marcus said:


> Well most of the time the Alanis offspring come on land with intens colour. Also the brasil's..often the head is orange and the older they get the yellower (less orange) it will become.
> 
> I find it diificult to use pictures because the flashlight is 'destroying' the exact colour. Especially with yellow..all the frogs look the same. When you see them walking around on the forestfloor with (direct) sunlight you can see clearly that they look different. Some are orange and some are yellow.
> 
> ...


Hey Marcus, this is an interesting picture. Even though I understand that collection is done it is almost shocking to see pics of collected frogs like that. If I understand from your original post you said that you had collected and observed frogs from the area that the alanis and inferalanis were both collected from and you didn't really see any differences. Is this batch of frogs in the picture a sampling of what could be for the way the hobby has labeled them both morphs? There are many variations in those frogs pictured and I assume that they were all collected from a single location. I also notice some size differences, but that could be the age of the frogs. I'd love to see more pics like this if your willing to post some up.


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## Marcus (Apr 18, 2004)

jubjub47 said:


> the area that the alanis and inferalanis were both collected from and you didn't really see any differences.


Hi Tim,

Maybe I was not clearly enough in my explanation (english is not my 1st language or i understand you not correctly but what i ment to say is;
Some of the 'Alanis' frogs we saw were intens coloured (orange) and others were less intens (yellow). So I think Alanis and InferAlanis live together.
Just some (bad?) thoughts...what if one of the exporters made a selection before exporting them?


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## jubjub47 (Sep 9, 2008)

Marcus said:


> Some of the 'Alanis' frogs we saw were intens coloured (orange) and others were less intens (yellow). So I think Alanis and InferAlanis live together.


Hey Marcus, I did read that earlier in one of your post. I guess I interpreted it as just variations within the alanis morph that hobbyist have labeled as separate morphs. From everything that I've read throughout this thread and others it sounds like the frogs are quite possibly the same morph. If the frogs can produce offspring that vary in color from the parents as Shawn's frogs did then the color variations could be nothing more than a natural variance within this population of frogs. I sounds like the only real advantage of keeping the two morphs separate at this point is for tracing back which importation your frogs came in with and even that is probably only true with the inferalanis due to mixing of the alanis morph.


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