# Alanis or not.



## Frank H

The color is really washed out in these pics so let me explain:
The stripe on his back is bright yellow
The legs are big black spots on blue that turn white at the "bracelet" area.
Im curious if he is an Alanis, as I was told before(also considered Inferalanis,but not many pictures of those online), because most pictures of Alanis dont have white bracelets. Anyone know what I have? I have had this frog for 8 months and it was quite young when I got him/her.
I want to add that the frog is getting very big. He/she is keeping up i size with my Citronella(at lease 1.5 inches) of the approx. same age.
Thanks .
-Frank


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## rleyh

My identification skills are non-existent. I'm replying only because I love the pattern on that frog.

I have two young Alanis, that have a different pattern on the head than your frog. They have three markings, one on the snout and one on each eye.

Very cool frog.

Rob


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## dmatychuk

Those definitely look like Alanis to me. I have 2 Alanis and I have had the infernalanis as well. I think there has been debate about the whole alanis verses infernalanis issue and coloring. the two I have came from Bill W. who got them from Rob M. as Alanis but mine are VERY high yellow in color and look like what I was familiar with as infernalanis. Yours look like low yellow, and as you say even washed out. I think the reason that your color may look different (or disappointing) to you is that the nutrition that was given the tads was probably not very good. I had this same issue with some yellow-backs that I had purchased....very washed out, more like a cream than a yellow. I can post pictures of mine if that would help.

I also like the Alanis and think it is a very cool frog


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## Frank H

When I said the color was washed out, I was refering to the picture, from the lighting or something,, but my frog has bright yellow and dark black.. 

So you guys' Alanis have white bracelets too?

-Frank


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## rleyh

My unqualified guess would be Alanis. Mine have sleeves instead of bracelets. It's a stripe down the front side of the front arms.

What I love about these guys is the variability of the pattern. One of them has a crescent moon shape on his side also.

Just plain cool! I'm such a little kid.

Rob


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## dmatychuk

I would say that my Alanis yellow fades more as you get to the foot but mine is not white and not limited to a braclet area.


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## rmelancon

Pix of Inferalanis -


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## dmatychuk

Rob,
Great frogs. What is the difference in Inferalanis vs. alanis? I should post the ones I got from Bill which I thought would've been Inferalanis but he call alanis. I try to get a picture up soon.


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## defaced

> What is the difference in Inferalanis vs. alanis?


I had that discussion with Bill Werts of Quality Exotics when I bought mine. He said that at that time (2ish years ago) that there hadn't been a decision on whether they were different or not. He said that Patrick Nabors and he disagreed on the matter, Bill saying they are different, Patrick saying they're not. If I remember corrcetly they arrived labled differently, and Patrick didn't think there was a difference. That last bit I'm not sure of, but the rest I'm positive of.



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## dmatychuk

bad picture, it is far more darker yellow and the head is even orange. But as you can see there is a lot of yellow on the legs and head. My understanding was the the alanis had more black and the infenalanis had a lot more yellow as this one does. So who is the authority on this one.?


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## defaced

I think you've got it backwards. Inferalanis would be more black, Alanis more yellow. My Inferalanis (from Bill Werts) has less yellow than the ones posted by Rob.



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## Frank H

I have got to get my friend over here with her camera, mine is not the greatest. Thanks for the responces and the pictures. 

I definately have more black than yellow-its the white ankles and wrists that baffles me.

Beautiful frogs, rmelancon and dmatychuk.

-Frank


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## KeroKero

But you also have to take into account the variability of these frogs... even in pattern and color (which could very depending on tadpole diet)


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## dmatychuk

> I think you've got it backwards.


You may be right. But back in the day when I used to buy everything WC I happen to buy some of the first Infernalanis WC that were brought in. I bought 4 animals and paid dearly for them. I remember all the scoffing that was going on then because alanis were relatively new and all of a sudden here comes one importer that claimed to have a "New" morph the Infernalanis and a lot of people said it was just BS by him and that it would never get recognized as that morph. I wish I could remember who I bought them from, and will try to see if I have it anywhere in my records. Anyway his pitch was INFERNAL because this one was on fire and had so much more yellow. I lost my entire collection 4 years ago to a 'mystery disease" when I got some WC Bri Bri. Within 2 months my collection of 86 animals where gone. Back then I wasn't plugged into any kind of a board like this for help and most breeders, that I knew, had no idea what was going on. Anyway the funny twist is that when I got the frog they where disappointingly low on the yellow and no where near his claim. But like you say maybe I have it all backwards. I would love someone to chime in who was around then and remembers when this morph came in. Any experts on the history?


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## dmatychuk

> But you also have to take into account the variability of these frogs... even in pattern and color (which could very depending on tadpole diet)


I agree. Plus you have to know that having a WC or F1 or F2 animal and so on, there is deterioration in the color of many morphs. Thats why the F1 animal is so desired. You don't have many of the disease and problems associated with WC animals and yet their color tends to be exact or very close to the parents.

I think this is a GREAT reason for Rob to get his PDF pedigree system going and get behind it, if he can make it work.


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## KeroKero

Eh, this doesn't seem correct with me... color degrading over generations? Some work I and another have been doing have pointed towards what you feed tadpoles determining level of yellow on a lot of the tincs... basically any tinc raised as a tadpole in captivity has the capacity to be "washed out" compared to the WCs, F1s included. I have seen F1s that do not rival their parents, and their offspring are the same. Give the tadpole access to caretaniods and the froglet morphs out much more colorful (I do not know if it would be "wild" coloration as I don't have WCs to compare them to) compared to animals fed on the popular "algae mix" diets currently in favor. It seems to be determined at the tadpole stage rather than the frog stage as supplimentation of "washed out" animals hasn't done much.

I mainly want F1s because of genetics, these are not animals that were bred from siblings that were bred from siblings that were bred from siblings, but still carry a nice wide gene pool.


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## rmelancon

My animals are original WC Inferalanis. I argued Alanis vs. Inferalanis for years and got tired of trying to explain what the difference was. Bottom line, you can't tell simply by looking at them. This is the case with many pumilio, auratus, you name it. YOU CAN NEVER TELL A MORPH SOLEY BY COLOR, PATTERN, SIZE OR OTHER PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS. Don't mean to yell but I see the same discussions over and over again with people asking to id something like alanis, or man creek, kaluah & cream and the list goes on. Yes you can tell the difference between a tinc and an aurautus or a pumilio and a reticulatus based on physical characteristics. But when you are talking about a race or "morph" within a species there are too many variables involved in color and pattern to id a morph simply on these characteristics. The only way to know is to know the source of your animal. It is up to the breeders/suppliers to give solid information to the people we supply frogs to and that is the only way to keep these things straight. If I supply someone Inferalanis they send that information to the people that purchase those animals. So if you buy frogs from Bill Wierts and he says they are inferalanis you know that's what they are regardless of how much yellow or orange, etc. Same with Alanis or Kaluahs or pumilio forms.
Now with all that said here is the deal with Inferalanis: They were brought in a separate importation well after the original alanis were brought in. The indians that collected them claimed they were from a different population of frogs. When I picked my inferalanis up they were right next to a tank full of alanis. There were definite differences, albeit slight ones. Whether or not they are from the same population is what people argue. They looked different enough to me and more importantly I have no reason to doubt they were collected in a different population. That is the reason I have argued that they be kept separate. There are those that disagree. Most likely because the CB animals in the hobby look identical for the most part. So it's up to the individuals now whether they stay separate. I'm quite sure people have mixed them already so in my case, if down the road I want some inferalanis, I will track down the sources and find frogs that I know are inferalanis and not alanis. But that's just me. There are those that will continue to say they are the same frogs and that's fine, we just agree to disagree and that's the end of it.
Just remember: YOU CAN NEVER TELL A MORPH SOLEY BY COLOR, PATTERN, SIZE OR OTHER PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS.


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## Frogtofall

^^So you're saying you can't tell a Sip from a Powder blue just by color alone? Physical characteristics are an excellent way to tell differences between morphs if there are any obvious ones like skeletal differences right? It'll be interesting when they finally find out that D. azureus is D. tinctorius. Heh.

You stated that when you got your Infers that they were next to tank full of Alanis and there were "definite differences, albeit slight ones" between the two. What were those "slight" differences that you noticed?

Personally IMO, it seems to me that someone was trying to make an extra dime back then and looks like they were successful.


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## rmelancon

No that is not what I am saying. Obviously there are exceptions and yes in certain cases there are "obvious" differences. But what is obvious to me may not be obvious to someone else. With the Alanis and Inferalanis, there was an obvious (to me) difference in overall size with Infers being larger. There was an obvious difference in color, with Infers being "more" colorful. There was an obvious difference in patters between the two. Once in captivity there are many things that can affect all of these. Frogs raised improperly will never attain the size that they should. Colors can be enhanced with additives. Patterns can be line bred for more or less of a certain characteristic. Therefore when you take two (or more) morphs that are very similar, ie. Alanis, Inferalanis, Oelemarie, Wygolt... you cannot tell (in most cases) soley on looks. There are people that will look at a New River tinc and swear it is an azureus, and while to most "trained" eyes they can be distinguished I will bet there are individual animals on both sides (azureus and new river) that even a trained eye could not tell apart. You can believe what you want about the importers trying to make an extra buck, but unless you saw the animals when they came in all you're doing is speculating just like all the speculation over farm raised animals. The fact is no one will ever know for sure so we go with the information that we are given.


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## KeroKero

Bravo Robb, that was very well put, and very true. Physical characteristics are just too variable (and change in captivity) that you need solid bloodline info to know for sure (sounds like what I've been harping for broms... "once you lose the tag you're screwed").

Like Robb mentioned, he was comparing WCs, and the CBs do lack in color since most breeders don't suppliment tadpoles (even then they arne't totally up to WC colors), and size does vary in CB animals and depends on how well they were raised (I've had intermedius from one source that were double the mass of my others... I don't think they were giants, just that the others weren't grown to their full potential). This color difference has been causing ID issues lately as people try and take their CB animals and ID then with pics of wild frogs, which have both different colors and the pics do not show size - not to mention all the wild morphs that aren't even in the hobby.

I can speak for the New River/Azureus mix ups... I saw a half grown Azureus at NAIB that was a dead ringer for a New River - mind you New Rivers were not in the collection (at least at the time) so there was no doubts on what it was. 

And since I brought up azureus - frogtofall azureus is azureus, not a tinc, and that's not going to change. Yes they are genetically closely related, but there are many more factors that go into "what makes a species" than how genetically close they are and if they can interbreed (geography and politics playing key roles in this case). We only see our animals in the hobby out of their scientific context so its not up to us to play taxonomist.


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## Frogtofall

KeroKero said:


> And since I brought up azureus - frogtofall azureus is azureus, not a tinc, and that's not going to change. Yes they are genetically closely related, but there are many more factors that go into "what makes a species" than how genetically close they are and if they can interbreed (geography and politics playing key roles in this case). We only see our animals in the hobby out of their scientific context so its not up to us to play taxonomist.


I'll have to find it, but there is some research that suggests that D. azureus is so genetically close to D. tinctorius that they could be different morphs of the same species. If you crossed the two, would they produce viable offspring that aren't sterile? If you could, then that alone "should" prove that they are one in the same species. To the best of my knowledge (contrary to popular belief, I DONT' know everything :mrgreen: ) two different species of the same genus can breed together, but most of the time will not produce viable offspring that are able to reproduce i.e. Mules, Ligers, Tigons yadda yadda yadda. But then comes in the Edible frog, Rana esculenta, that is a hybrid that can reproduce. Oddly though, it can only breed with the Pool or Marsh frog and not another Edible frog. But that falls under Hybridogenesis and is the topic for another discussion at another time.

Looking at external (color, shape, posture etc), internal (skeletal) and breeding habits, the two are _almost_ identical or at least very very similar. I wouldn't be surprised if in the next 3 or 4 years we do come to find out that Dart frogs taxonomists and researchers rename D. azureus to D. tinctorius azureus or something to that effect. Only time will tell...

I guess a lot people have their opinions on Alanis and Infer, but since none of us were actually there collecting the frogs ourselves, we can only form opinions based on what we see and what we hear/heard. Its kind of sad that such a nice specimen/morph of tinctorius got its heritage all screwed up... Who wants to go to South America??


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## KeroKero

I highly recomend you doing a search and looking up the posts Ed K made about the definition of a species. Its complicated and tends to vary from taxonomist to taxonomist (which put more emphasis on one particular aspect to seperate this species from that one often) and is basically taking in a variety of factors such as (but not limited to) genetics, geography, behavior, morphology, and politics. Except for politics and genetics, the other characteristics looked at to define a species are basically the things that keep the animals in their state in the wild from interbreeding with closely related species - this can often be very small differences that create just enough of a niche difference for the species to not compete with each other directly over the same resources (like imitator and variabilis having different breeding plant preferences).

Within Dendrobatidae, species within the same species group can and will interbreed and produce fertile offspring under certain conditions - these are rare in the wild due to niches and what not. I can't honestly say I've heard of hybrids from different species groups, and doubt it would happen, even under captive pressures due to such different behaviors and morphology.

Azureus and tinctorius, as members of the same species group can and do interbreed in captivity given certain conditions, and they are closely related enough that its more likely to occur than crosses to other less closely related species in the species group. There is actually a man made "morph" of "tinc" in Europe that is an azureus tinc cross ('acrya'?). Looking genetically, they are close enough to be the same species, have similar behavior, similar morphology (tho there are differences), but _they do not interbreed in the wild_ which is why they are a different species (albet a very young one). Azureus are isolated to rainforest "islands" in the middle of tropical savannah so there is little to no genetic flow between them and their parent species. There is also political pressure to keep them a species and a lot of time, effort, and money would go out the window if we decided to just go with the genetics route.

Lately with genetic technology remapping our understanding of how many organisms are related some of the old characteristics have kinda fallen by the wayside a bit, but genetics is not "_the_" way to determine what is a species, but part of it. Its a very out of context way to look at a species (much like looking at tincs and azureus just from the hobby) so we have to remember to take into account their characteristics in the wild.

As for Alanis/Inferalanis I'm all for keeping them seperate, if not as a morph, at least as different lines. This is similar to the GO/Regina debate.


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## Frank H

This is great reading. I thoroughly enjoy reading-I need to get the "Jewels of the Rainforest" book. 

I guess Im gonna have to skip on trying to breed this fella. Since there is no way to find out what he/she is, it would be stupid to try and find a mate for him/her. This is one of my first 2 frogs I bought from a petstore, and those guys have no history on the frog whatsoever.

 


Maybe I can try and trade him to someone who doesnt care for breeding, for a known species.

Anyway, Thanks everyone for the reading material and for trying to help.  

-Frank


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## KeroKero

Yeah, unfortunately that's the sucky way of it  Jewels of the Rainforest has some gorgeous pics... just don't pay too much attention to the words :roll:


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## defaced

Thanks for the background Robb. I didn't know the whole story. I'll have to give this thread a dedicated read when I get some more time. Right now I have a lab report that needs to be done.



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## Frogtofall

KeroKero said:


> Yeah, unfortunately that's the sucky way of it  Jewels of the Rainforest has some gorgeous pics... *just don't pay too much attention to the words* :roll:










It is a bit out of date isn't it? I remember seeing how Walls says that D. pumilio are, "Next to impossible to breed in captivity." Hahaha! Ahh how things change...

I often contemplate the fact of how D. azureus' territory/habitat is isolated into islands of rainforest away from tinctorius. I know scientists believe its b/c of the ice age moving crap around and I guess that aspect is a really strong argument for azureus and tinctorius being different species.

As far as genetics go, scientists have said that humans are 99% genetically identical to chimpanzees, but that 1% makes us completely different... well _some_ of us... :shock: Kinda interesting.


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## KeroKero

Yeah, I've definately seen some people that make me real certain about the 1% relatedness 

The book is a mix of out of date and some that was just never accurate in the first place, but the pics are worth it. The atelopus pics of the Costa Rica Atelopus varius make me sad tho, as they are extinct


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## Frank H

http://www.blackjungle.com/Merchant2/me ... ry_Code=AA

This frog from black jungle looks so much like my frog. :shock: 

-Frank


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## RGB

Good Stuff, very interesting.

Hey Frank what pet store did you get your frog at? I was checking out Pet Kingdom today and they had a lot of Tincs and a few Azureus and Auratus. Expensive though, 3-4 times what you see on here. Also, i have the Jewels of The Rainforest book if you want to take a look at it. Let me know and i can dig it out and bring it to the next meeting.


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## KeroKero

Yeah, but I'm sure you could find some Olemarie that you'd NEVER think looked anything like your frog, that morph has a lot of variation in it. Kinda cool, yet a pain in the butt if you were playing "ID the Tinc" from scratch... Alanis, InferAlanis, Olemarie, and one or two other morphs often have individuals that may look similar to each other. The CB lack of color doesn't help either, as WCs the animals may be very easy to diffferenciate, but washed out CBs could look similar to each other...

Its like the repetition of the green pumilio thru out the pumilio range... it occurs on a couple different islands and possibly just as many mainland ones... can be very similar looking (I mean, come on, they're green!) yet from isolated population, and some of them are very far apart which makes you wonder how the green popped up again!

The back pattern in the Olemarie on BJ isn't all that unusual in a tinc (colors from white to orange), but the leg patterns could be the same pattern (alanis/inferalanis), or blue netting (cobalts), or solid blue... leg patterns are repeated thru out tincs, but the back patterns are different, or are different colors... if you go thru all the tinc morphs you could play mix and patch with their patterns and colors and probibly come up with that combination in a real wild population! Its almost like the genes of the species allow for variation in the patterns so much, and the variation in the colors so much, and as populations seperate out, certain characteristics get isolated and become the "typical" for that population - there is no rule saying that it can't pop up in another population!


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## Frank H

You crushed my hopes again Corey... lol 

Just kidding of course, thanks for your input. 

Ron, I got 2 tincs at the petstore on 3rd avenue in Chula Vista. It used to be called Petrageous, South bay tropicals.. and its under new ownership now and I dont know if the name is the same. They have orange bastimentos, a green pumilio with just the name "pumilo" on the cage, some leucs, and a green and black auratus. They have a really nice vivarium that one of the workers there designed, but they keep all the frogs in this vivarium, mixing species, and this encourages mixing to the customers.

Very cool pet store though.


Pet Kingdom is a much larger store. I also trust the fly cultures at pet kingdom more than those at petrageous. Pet kingdom has never let me down with pinheads... As opposed to petrageous trying to sell me 2 week olds and trying to convince me they arent too big for my frogs.

-Frank


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## chuckpowell

The original frog looks like a Tafelburg three point to me. They tend to be quite variable. They also might just be an early name for Alanis also, part of the same broad population around Tafelburg.

Best,

Chuck


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