# Crossbreeds, update



## RedEyeTroyFrog (Jan 25, 2008)

This is an update for some of my older cross breeds reaching sexual maturity. i currently have 6 in this stage. 

first let me say that i hope there is no bashing on this post for the simple reason that these frogs have been listed on here a few times before and most of the ppl who look at these threads should understand my reason for these frogs. and its not for profit, but for curiosity and further knowledge on the tintorius morph. This thread was not to be an argument

What i have noticed is that, most of the frogs have been losing alot of the yellow and been replacing it with black. there are still a couple that have kept the full yellow head and alot on the sides. These ones happen to be most striking to me. I have also noticed their bellies brightening up a bit and looking really cool. so far the offspring seem to be male heavy. i am pretty sure i have a couple females, but the males toepads are really easy to see on these guys. I'm actually happy that this cross breed was produced, the reason being that i think its a beautiful morph, and not only that i think they are just beautiful creatures in general. These frogs are still in a 15 gallon, but i think since they have been together for so long they are still getting along, i plan on housing these frogs in the 150 gallon where they were born. i should be able to house quite a few of these puppys in there. 

any way i took some pics today here they are.


































































































sorry about all the pics i tried getting a good mix, heavy yellow/ mostly black, bellys, toes, and what not

-Troy

I'll get some pics of my azureus subs as well, ive got 8 right now and im pretty sure they are almost ready for some sexing, and ive got 7 azureus froglets, and still a ton of tads


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## KCBALLer (Feb 5, 2009)

what did you cross to get these. i was looking to get a pair of suriname cobalts but these are gorgeous! would you ever sell any?


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## Nate (Jan 5, 2009)

KCBALLer said:


> what did you cross to get these. i was looking to get a pair of suriname cobalts but these are gorgeous! would you ever sell any?


Am I right when I say D.tinctorius Citronella and D. azures?

They are beautiful, but I wouldn't buy them for obvious reasons. Still nice looking frogs though.


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## RedEyeTroyFrog (Jan 25, 2008)

Alanis -Male
x
Citronella - Female

and no they are not for sale, thanks tho im glad that u think they are gorgeous...
-Troy

i forgot to add in the original post... the most interesting thing i find about these frogs is... Neither prent has the bracelets like these crosses do, and neither frog has the small black dots all over like these do, the alanis has some blue webbing on its legs and a little bit under its belly, but nothing like these guys, citronella only has a line of black dots on its underbelly where the belly meets the flanks... i just found this quite interesting


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## frogparty (Dec 27, 2007)

Im not bashing, those are beautiful, and you know better than to do something irresponsible with them. Just think, you have a frog that may exist nowhere else on earth. I think this kind of thing is just fine for people like you to mess with, just not to release into the hobby for the masses


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## Julio (Oct 8, 2007)

they are certainly gorgeous do keep us updated to see if they breed or turn out sterile


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## Philsuma (Jul 18, 2006)

Congrats on a reasonable post.

Also....Thank you for saying you are not going to sell or transfer any of these and I have no reason to think otherwise.

While it's hard to "not like" any animal....I can honestly say, I would rather not see a frog look like that.

hopefully new hobbyists will gravitate to the pure morphs.


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## jubjub47 (Sep 9, 2008)

You can really see the inferalanis traits in most of them. Pretty interesting looking.


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## RedEyeTroyFrog (Jan 25, 2008)

but if it were discovered in the wild? im sure you'd say other wise....unless you're not a fan of the larger Dendrobates frogs


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## RedEyeTroyFrog (Jan 25, 2008)

jub jub, my alanis was sold to me as just regular Alanis..... here is a pic, let me kno what you think









i notice the little streaks on the knee caps, and also it has a tiny little bracelet, i guess its feet too


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## phender (Jan 9, 2009)

The yellow bracelets and the yellow side patches are very striking.


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## Nate (Jan 5, 2009)

I like jub jub.

I am glad you aren't going to sell them, but now I am wondering what their kids may look like what traits are dominant and recessive etc. Keep us posted on your Crossbreeds. Btw, is their a specific name for this type of crossbreed?


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## RedEyeTroyFrog (Jan 25, 2008)

hahah well Rich Frye gave them the Name, Alanacit some time ago, so thats what ill call them. im interested in the kids as well, if they do breed ill keep one egg, cull the rest.


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## jubjub47 (Sep 9, 2008)

I forgot it was a regular alanis. Although from everything I understand they are assumed to be the same.


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## RedEyeTroyFrog (Jan 25, 2008)

yeah thats why i never really specify, i jus say alanis


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## *slddave* (Jun 2, 2006)

Philsuma said:


> I would rather not see a frog look like that.


Kind of an odd thing to say as these frogs look very similar to some of the other tinc morphs


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## frogparty (Dec 27, 2007)

maybe he means the depraved look the one in pic #5 is giving the camera...lol
I'd eat you if only you were a bit smaller


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## RedEyeTroyFrog (Jan 25, 2008)

yeah sld dave, i agree, thats why i said if they were discovered in the wild i'd bet he would not say that


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## chesney (Jan 18, 2007)

Just to clarify, I DO NOT mix my frogs. I don't want to bash anyone (especially when they are being semi-responsible), but I fear that these posts of crossbred frogs may encourage others (especially those inexperienced "can I mix these frogs" kind of people) to do the same and somehow...somewhere...those frogs may end up being introduced back into the hobby as the morph they most resemble. Not bashing, just making a comment.


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## RedEyeTroyFrog (Jan 25, 2008)

yeah i understand that lisa, but hopefully ppl can also use me as a learning situation and realize that ppl can make cross breeds and not release them into the public, and use them for personal satisfaction and knowledge of the tinc morphs. with that being said there are other people out there that do cross breed tincs purposely, they just might not do or say it publicly like i have done in my past threads about these frogs. The bottom line is that ppl are gonna do what they want to do. I just find the tinctorius morph fascinating, and interesting and i am not going to believe that what we have found in the wild are the only true morphs to date.

happy st patties day every1!!!
-Troy


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## Pitcom (Sep 5, 2008)

Awesome Tincs. I have no problem with cross breeds myself. I currently have a communal tank with , Alanis, Azureus and Leucomelas living together. It is my hope that they will cross breed. Some zoos i have been too have communal tanks. One i visited had 7 different tincs living together in the same tank. Like you, this is for my enjoyment and to study their behavior and traits. My goal was to take 2 of each of the frogs I listed and see if they paired up with their same counterpart or went a different route. All i can say so far is that The Azureus go bonkers when they hear a Leucomelas call.


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## RedEyeTroyFrog (Jan 25, 2008)

ok Pitcom just so you know some people might start bashing you for the simple reason that you plan on crossing, mine happened unintentionally to start, but i just let it go. I just want to warn you, and give you some advise to be careful when breeding these because they will continue to breed in great numbers. I agree with you that they're your frogs and you have the right to do what you want with them. So if you dont plan on letting them be released to the public then great, im excited to see what comes of your frogs. Just be careful!!....how big is you enclosure that you have these frogs in?

oh btw, try not to bring up zoos, for alot of the members on this site are not very happy with the quality, and size of the enclosures that has the mixed tanks going on. It upsets quite a few member here. You have to remember, that most of zoo's not all of them care more about the awe factor/ giving people something to remember! while saving the most space they possibly can, so one nice size tank with a bunch of different species and morphs/colors of dart frogs fits that description quite well. The members on this site are more about, breeding and keeping morphs and bloodlines true, for we are all Poison Dart frogs fanatics. they do it for themselves, not to give people something to remember...
good luck with everything,
Troy


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## swampfoxjjr (Nov 13, 2007)

Deleted post


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## Devanny (Jul 11, 2008)

Lets not start this again, he clearly stated that he did not want any bashing he is just posting update pics of his crossbreed frogs there is no need to come at him like that.
If you dont agree with what he is doing then just ignore the post and call it a day.


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## Brian Ferriera (Nov 1, 2006)

I have a really problem with people crossing frogs..how ever you're not hiding behind it..you said what you did and why you did it and you're not selling them so they're really no need for any one even the most hard core among us to start bashing you.. Thank you for representing your frogs for what they are.
Brian


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## stitchb (Jan 26, 2009)

I think what you're doing is pretty cool. I mean don't get me wrong-I'm all for keeping morphs and bloodlines pure but if it happened unintentionally, I understand not killing a couple to see what pops out haha. NOW that should be not an excuse for everyone to start "_accidently_" breeding different species and then "_accidently_" selling/trading them or their offspring to other people haha. 

So, long story short...

Beautiful kids! I applaud you for doing the responsible thing in this situation. It says alot about your integrity and character.

Great job


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## Marinarawr (Jan 14, 2009)

While I do see many excellent points in your post (the possibility of new hobbyists deciding to undertake such experiments without the same principles that Troy holds being one of them) I also do not agree that nothing was learned and that Troy is only out for a "dramatic" response. While I have no interest or intentions of producing hybrids (of PDFs or anything else for that matter) I did find the pattern displayed in these cross breeds intriguing. They bear similar marking to the Nouragues tincs on Dendrobates tinctorius morphguide and are somewhat similar to Tafelberg and obviously Alanis. If anything was gained from this it was certainly a little insight into which naturally occurring PDF morphs may have been the originals. 
I could speculate that Azureus may have been one of the original morphs of dart frog, and more widely dispersed than it is currently, that breed with the populations of Matecho, or Citronella, or Regina, giving us some of the Cobalts that have a broader color spectrum. Of course I'm being a bit too specific in my hypothetical statement but my point was that he did prove Alanis to have many dominant pattern traits over citronella. Also the offspring are rather consistent in color and pattern unlike many times when dogs are crossbreed and you can have a litter of 5 with all of them looking entirely different. 
Anyway, I'd like to close by saying that I am in no way supporting hybridization, but I do commend Troy on his stalwart position on keeping these frogs in his own hands or none at all. (There are many ways of dispatching small animals as humanely as possible, that are commonly practiced by snake keepers, if you do ever come into those unfortunate circumstances Troy.) I also appreciate that he has the courage to share his findings. Yes many people (newcomer or not) are guilty of mixing species but I think that if a person has it in their head to crossbreed then they'll do it whether they see Troys post or not. I think that posts like this may even be good for the hobby in the way that newcomers are shown a hybrid and then they get to read the negatives and see what a tongue lashing they'd get if they ever explored that avenue themselves. I know I wouldn't wanna take that kind of heat...


*EDIT* Post deleted. I don't wanna disrespect that . Because of this some of my statements may seem out of place but whatever .


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## Anoleo2 (Feb 1, 2006)

While I don't embrace the crossbreeding factor, I do respect you for not trying to pawn these off on some newbie, or just flat out selling them to the public. 
It also seems that you have respect for the views of other hobbyists, and are not just saying "These are my frogs, I don't care what you say, I will do what I want with them," like some people I have seen.

Thanks for being responsible!


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## RedEyeTroyFrog (Jan 25, 2008)

nice post marina, i really feel that we have a similar opinion on the whole situation. all of my other frogs breed true, and are paired up with same morph pairs. So i was not for hybrid breeding ever, it happened because i put some of the frogs who did not have a male or female counter part in a communal 150 gallon tank, thinking it would give enough space to not crossbreed, fight, etc. etc., but then once i saw that they did breed, i became obsessively curious, i started second guessing all the tinctorius moprhs, so i just had to see what they looked liked.

with all that being said i have got an idea of how these frogs work in my house, they created about 30 of these all perfectly healthy off spring and ive culled probably around 80-100 eggs, the breeding activity only went on less than a year. So i have a slight easier time believing that this is not impossible (like some other believe) for this to occur in the wild. i also find it hard to believe that locality is the MAIN reason these animals dont cross, my reason behind that is that there are numbers "True Breeds" found from the same Locale

now i am wondering what the offspring would look like from a Alanis female and citronella male?? would their traits change in any way? FYI : im not planning on finding out!
while i was never for cross breeding tincs, i am still not against it....i feel if controlled under the right circumstance it can end up being really beneficial for us and learing more about the morphology of the tinctorius species


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## jackj921 (Apr 17, 2008)

*Re: Crossbreeds-Questions??????*

As a "newbie" to dart frogs but a long long time tropical fish keeper, I have two question to ask.. "why are cross breeds looked at so harshly by dart frog keeps but not fish keepers?" Does that view keep the DF hobby from expanding? 
As an example, with tropical fish there are those who love wild discus and there are those who love the new reds, blues, whites, oranges etc not found in the wild. Mollies, guppies, swordtails, angelfish also immediately come to mind with new color combinations (and even fin variations), yet the original wild versions still have a place in the hearts of many fish keepers. Do any "risks" associated with creating these man made color varieties of fish exist to the same degree with DF or is there some additional factor for frogs? Why is it highly "acceptable" (and desirable) for fish keepers to create new colors but a "sin" for DF keepers?
Would the DF hobby grow and expand or suffer if new color varieties of tincs were created by crossing different types? Why isn't there room in the DF hobby for both "pure breds" and colorful "mutts" at the same time? I guess I had more than two questions, but I think the views of some of the old timers to DF will make for an interesting discussion.


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## boogsawaste (Jun 28, 2008)

*Re: Crossbreeds-Questions??????*



jackj921 said:


> As a "newbie" to dart frogs but a long long time tropical fish keeper, I have two question to ask.. "why are cross breeds looked at so harshly by dart frog keeps but not fish keepers?" Does that view keep the DF hobby from expanding?
> As an example, with tropical fish there are those who love wild discus and there are those who love the new reds, blues, whites, oranges etc not found in the wild. Mollies, guppies, swordtails, angelfish also immediately come to mind with new color combinations (and even fin variations), yet the original wild versions still have a place in the hearts of many fish keepers. Do any "risks" associated with creating these man made color varieties of fish exist to the same degree with DF or is there some additional factor for frogs? Why is it highly "acceptable" (and desirable) for fish keepers to create new colors but a "sin" for DF keepers?
> Would the DF hobby grow and expand or suffer if new color varieties of tincs were created by crossing different types? Why isn't there room in the DF hobby for both "pure breds" and colorful "mutts" at the same time? I guess I had more than two questions, but I think the views of some of the old timers to DF will make for an interesting discussion.


I'm not going to get very into it but one of the main reasons is that there are limited numbers of these frogs in captivity AND in the wild. Once things get mixed up the true morph of the frog can eventually be lost forever. 

And Troy, those frogs are looking spectacular if I do say so myself. Once again, I applaud you on your braveness to post those, and your dedication to keep them safe from entering the hobby.


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## stitchb (Jan 26, 2009)

*Re: Crossbreeds-Questions??????*



jackj921 said:


> As a "newbie" to dart frogs but a long long time tropical fish keeper, I have two question to ask.. "why are cross breeds looked at so harshly by dart frog keeps but not fish keepers?" Does that view keep the DF hobby from expanding?


The thing with this hobby is it's more about conservation than anything. These animals are critically endangered-habitat destruction, chytrid fungus, water contamination, rising temperatures, etc...I belive that pretty much all of the members here, myself included (one day  lol), breed and keep these animals in the hopes that one day, should the conditions ever change, that there will be enough CB species to reintroduce sustainable populations back to into the wild.

That's it in a nutshell! That's why it's a no-no ahaha, my take anyway.


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## jackj921 (Apr 17, 2008)

I think both of you who replied to my questions have clearly and succinctly explained the reasoning for not crossing dart frog varieties in very few words? Thank You!!!!!
I also just thought of another reason-dart frogs ALREADY come in more color combinations that there really is no need to create "new" colors, unlike say discus where the wild versions are primarily brown, angelfish only being silver and black in the wild etc etc.
So why isn't this hobby more widespread? There is actually less work and equipment necessary in keeping frogs than fish. And by far, I am finding tadpoles much more tolerant of less than perfect water than discus fry, or angel fry etc.


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## thedude (Nov 28, 2007)

wow those are very nice looking. as long as they stay out of the hobby i dont care. i dont entirely see the point when there are already morphs that look close to that though. but atleaset you are responsible.

HOWEVER.....the problem i have with posting about it is the quote below:


KCBALLer said:


> what did you cross to get these. i was looking to get a pair of suriname cobalts but these are gorgeous! would you ever sell any?


seems like you encouraged a noob to want these. went from wanting a legitimate pair to wanting a science experiment. 

i guess what im saying is its fine as long as they stay out of the hobby and make sure newbies know that natural accuring morphs are the way to go, and why it is so important.


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## Dendrobait (May 29, 2005)

Honestly these frogs are not particularly "nice looking"...but this does show the dangers of hybrids!

If you posted those w/o the mention of their origins I bet people would have suspected Surinam Cobalt or Inferalanis(Apparently yellow is a recessive trait?)...perhaps odder ones due to the plain yellow sides. They don't have anything special marking them as hybrids. And that is why we'd rather not have hybrids out there in the hobby.

But you've done a good job in holding onto them, and they look well taken care of.


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## Nate (Jan 5, 2009)

jackj921 said:


> I think both of you who replied to my questions have clearly and succinctly explained the reasoning for not crossing dart frog varieties in very few words? Thank You!!!!!
> I also just thought of another reason-dart frogs ALREADY come in more color combinations that there really is no need to create "new" colors, unlike say discus where the wild versions are primarily brown, angelfish only being silver and black in the wild etc etc.
> So why isn't this hobby more widespread? There is actually less work and equipment necessary in keeping frogs than fish. And by far, I am finding tadpoles much more tolerant of less than perfect water than discus fry, or angel fry etc.


It's like falconry, the government doesn't want the wrong people to be getting into this hobby. If it was available to everyone their would be more Dart Frog releases into the wild.



RedEyeTroyFrog said:


> oh btw, try not to bring up zoos, for alot of the members on this site are not very happy with the quality, and size of the enclosures that has the mixed tanks going on. It upsets quite a few member here. You have to remember, that most of zoo's not all of them care more about the awe factor/ giving people something to remember! while saving the most space they possibly can, so one nice size tank with a bunch of different species and morphs/colors of dart frogs fits that description quite well. The members on this site are more about, breeding and keeping morphs and bloodlines true, for we are all Poison Dart frogs fanatics. they do it for themselves, not to give people something to remember...
> good luck with everything,
> Troy


Went a local zoo like a month ago. Monday they got their first darts. Went to see them on wednesday, wednesday- pathetic looking frogs... thursday- no frogs 

I complained about it to the manager and they said they were taking perfect care of them and it was a unknown problem that killed them... Stress of a mixed tank and not properly set up tank is my guess. Yet another reason why the hobby isn't wide spread, many people just can't take care of things.


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## RedEyeTroyFrog (Jan 25, 2008)

Dendrobait said:


> Honestly these frogs are not particularly "nice looking"...but this does show the dangers of hybrids!
> 
> If you posted those w/o the mention of their origins I bet people would have suspected Surinam Cobalt or Inferalanis(Apparently yellow is a recessive trait?)...perhaps odder ones due to the plain yellow sides. They don't have anything special marking them as hybrids. And that is why we'd rather not have hybrids out there in the hobby.
> 
> But you've done a good job in holding onto them, and they look well taken care of.


ok ive got some catching up to do, its st patties day still where im at and im just getting home from the bar. . . but this is the post that kinda rattled me. 

You say these frogs are not particularly "nice looking" ?? id like to know what fits your line of description for "nice looking" 

IMO while both morphs you mentioned have traits of these frogs, u can say that for a bout 20 different morphs so im not exactly following you there. Yes yellow is a recessive trait for a lot of the tinc morphs... including mine, the thing i find rare in these frogs are the amount of yellow they have, the heavily marked bellies legs and elbows, and the bracelets.... and if we go there well, we could talk regina, azureus, GO, even as far as yellow sips (as for the bellies) , inferalanis, giant orange, certain variations of cobalts, matecho, yellow bacl just a few off top of my head to name for the bracelets, and as for the elbows, well... ive never really seen that in any frog that ive personally seen, but thats not to say that it doesnt exists. the feet and toes on the other hand remind me alot of alanis which makes sense.

with all that being said.... you said " They dont have anything special marking them as hybrids" . . . therefore i have to assume that maybe we as a group of hobbyists we may have taken this cross breeding thing a little to far and got in a little over our heads with what we really know about these animals. if you can hardly tell the difference from a high resolution camera with flash showing all marks of the frog, how would really know the difference seeing in person? might just fit within the frogs of its locale, and not be horrifyingly different... you know what im sayn? I'm not arguing just trying to keep the thought open that we really dont have a clue of whats really out there. 

Happy st Car Bomb
-Troy


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## RedEyeTroyFrog (Jan 25, 2008)

thedude said:


> wow those are very nice looking. as long as they stay out of the hobby i dont care. i dont entirely see the point when there are already morphs that look close to that though. but atleaset you are responsible.
> 
> HOWEVER.....the problem i have with posting about it is the quote below:
> 
> ...


well that noob you say, has pm'd me and explained what his thoughts are on the matter, and has a pretty decent knowledge on this subject... he respected me for what i was doing. but anyways, i really get irked when people say natural occurring morphs, i guess it bothers me because, IN MY OPINION i feel we really aren't exactly sure what the natural occurring morphs are. dont mean to argue, its just my opinion and its quite strong

and what is your problem with having a legitimate pair and having a science experiment?... its a matter of choice, u may want to breed these animals true and not really learn anything about the morphology and just learn the tinctorius breeding process, some may just do it for extra easy cash. while another person may want to cross this SAME SPECIES but different color morphs to try and put some actual knowledge behind this. . . its a matter of opinion and choice, no1 should be able to tell them who is right or wrong when it is in fact THEIR hobby.
... once again if i come of hostile i don't mean to be, i just get kinda frustrated on this subject...


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## RedEyeTroyFrog (Jan 25, 2008)

ok and last but not least, im kinda tired of ppl saying the reason we dont cross breed is because of habitat deconstruction, fungus, blah we have to keep these lines true... if this is really the fact and we do end up losing all of the wild population of PDF's (tinctorius), this site has allready proven that there is a much higher number of those on here who do not agree with cross breeding, so if there are that many of us, then we really wont need to worry as far as the hobby goes, true lines should/will always be around...i really highly doubt that if a couple ppl start breeding crosses, its gonna take over the hobby, and leave all the true breeders in the dust. I really think that the reasoning behind this is ridiculous. As long as we dont take all of the frogs in the hobby today for granted, then we should be ok, we already took some frogs for granted back in the late 80's and early 90's, which has made then next to impossible to acquire now days, but i feel that the steady flow and variety of frogs we can offer today will be around for quite some time, (Just in the US alone).........so my main point is that cross breeding with not affect the natural wild population(as we know it as of know) at all in my mind....

ugh had to get that off my chest
-Troy


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## frogparty (Dec 27, 2007)

Well one thing's for certain... in the dog world, mutts live the longest, often with far fewer health issues that true breeds suffer as a result of line breeding. You just diversified those frogs gene pool, and I bet they turn out huge, horny and healthy


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## thedude (Nov 28, 2007)

RedEyeTroyFrog said:


> well that noob you say, has pm'd me and explained what his thoughts are on the matter, and has a pretty decent knowledge on this subject... he respected me for what i was doing. but anyways, i really get irked when people say natural occurring morphs, i guess it bothers me because, IN MY OPINION i feel we really aren't exactly sure what the natural occurring morphs are. dont mean to argue, its just my opinion and its quite strong



......im confused a little. why are you telling us that we dont actually know what the natural occuring morphs are? just because they MIGHT mix in the wild, doesnt mean you should mix them in captivity to see what happens. what exactly is your purpose behind this? what are you looking for in the morph and the genes? what is the point? not only that but these shouldnt even be called a "morph".

by the way this as well is not hostile. just moving the conversation along to help me understand. cause i do think they are pretty. i think they are just as nice looking as alanis and cobalts, etc., etc. but they arent NATURAL, which is why i dont like them. exactly why i like this hobby over other herp hobbies.


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## tonying (Mar 6, 2008)

frogparty said:


> Well one thing's for certain... in the dog world, mutts live the longest, often with far fewer health issues that true breeds suffer as a result of line breeding. You just diversified those frogs gene pool, and I bet they turn out huge, horny and healthy


One thing to keep in mind when comparing with dogs is that dogs have been bred to their current forms through artificial selection to promote certain traits, which may have amplified the impact of undesirable genes which have in turn have reduced their overall fitness. The frogs, on the other hand, are the result of natural selection and thus should be very fit for survival (at least survival under the conditions they originate from). Consequently, maintaining bloodlines may be a good way of maintaining fitness, thus increasing the chances of successful re-introduction into their natural setting, if that needs to be done.


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## Marinarawr (Jan 14, 2009)

I don't remember the thread but Ed made a very good post about poor parenting in captive dart frogs caused by the false parenting we provide that allows for the bloodlines to continue. I'm not trying to be argumentative, but I thought I'd mention it as one possible weak link in the preservation aspect of the hobby. Sorry to get off topic!

On the subject of newbies to the hobby being swayed into wanting hybrids... One small solace is that hybrids are not readily available. I would also hope that, if the time were to come where captive darts were being released back into the wild, only well known, reputable, and/or long established dart frog breeders would be trusted to have pure lines. I'm not saying that the frogs of small, private breeders and enthusiasts have poor genes and what not... I just think that, while even those measures wouldn't be fool proof, it would be a "safer" bet. Of course the fact that hybrids are not more common than pure lines won't stop uneducated people from stumbling across them, but I think that it's up to those dedicated to maintaining true lines to scrutinize when it comes to finding a trustworthy breeder to buy from.


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## jackj921 (Apr 17, 2008)

What would the conservationistas say to keeping and propagating and existing wild caught pair of hybrids. If there were a naturally occurring hybrid population in a very small area of Costa Rica would it be OK to acquire and breed them with a goal of expanding that population? Is the answer that if it occurs naturally it is OK but if humans create it, it is not?
When does a group of similar hybrids in the wild become a "morph"? (Is Darwin still alive?)
In my newbie view, with the small number of people who keep Darts today and the even smaller number of hybrids available to anyone, I think the weakest argument against hybrids is the remotely possible introduction into the wild, at least at the present time.


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## ZeeMan (Sep 19, 2008)

Since the thread has shifted a bit...
I have a few questions (these are not meant to be sarcastic in anyway, more for my curiousity and education)

1. From quite a few internet pages, a big reason why pdfs are disappearing in the wild is because of habitat loss and human encroachment. (Although, I remember reading somewhere that _O. pumilio_ are finding a way to co-exist with human habitation). If we had the chance to return the frogs to the wild, how much of the wild is left for them?
2. If a species is going extinct, to reintroduce them to the wild, and counting the factors of disasters, area-specific environmental influences, macro environmental influence, prey, predators, sq. footage necessary, pollutants...how many frogs would we have to introduce to establish a viable population? 100? 200?
3. Lastly, from this site, it seems that a large number of frogs come from imports in the past. Considering the fact most of the frogs are cb now, how genetically diverse are our captive frogs? I see ads where the frogs are from so-and-so's line, how many frogs/line do the breeders have? In my ignorance, I have only seen a maximum of three unrelated lines from one breeder. If we were to release them, a single bad "factor" would wipe out a stagnant gene pool of frogs.

And on a more human note, while everyone hopefully wants to save the Earth, how many ppl would actually give up their frogs, especially frogs that have low egg/tadpole production and are rare? and what would be the impact of the frog industry? would we not want to keep some frogs in captivity so if the first introduction fails we have backup? are there even that many frogs to go around, especially genetically?

Troy, btw, the crossbreeds are really beautiful. I understand that the breeding was accidental, but still happy that you didn't cull too many of them. A life is a life, and sometimes I think we get stuck in ideology that we don't always appreciate that. (Now, my ff's are probably wondering why i feed them to the frogs...alas such a cruel world)
Did see any hybrid vigor in regards to growth?

Thanks all for reading.
I am no expert/scientist (Actually, for those who care, I am an architect/designer). I am not trying to start a fight, these are legit questions I have been trying to figure out.


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## RedEyeTroyFrog (Jan 25, 2008)

ok Jack,
i liked your post, particularly you question about what if we found a hybrid tinctorius in the wild? .... this made me laugh because i feel that we already have found hybrids, but we dont actually consider them hybrids, when a different morph is discovered in the wild it gets a name, either of the explorer or say its daughter or its locale. So i guess to answer you question. It would never happen, because , for example, the frog that was posted on amphibian arks website, no one knows much about it, but yet since amphibian ark found it in the wild? Its not a cross- its a new morph... this is the frog i was referring to









zee,
their growth was perfectly normal, just as good if not better than any of my other froglets that i have or have ever had, they are about 9 months OOW, right now, i have a feeling that these will be in the realm of Citronella, GO, Regina, Cobalt, Powder Blue(Giant Morphs) when they are full grown.

Also this is a question for every1. Am I really the only person to date that has actually done this nad gone public with it? I can seem to find any information about any studies on this, what has come of the cross offspring, were they fertile? I know that there has been a couple of cross tinctorius in the past, Ive seen a couple on Frognet.org, but there wasnt much info on them, not many pics, no parent details, ets ets, and then the ones found on the morph guide on tropicalexperience, Amotopo, Weygoldt, and Agreja. . . is that it, if anyone has some more information on these or anymore cases of tinc crossing please list some links, or literature and what not. thanks All

-Troy


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## frogparty (Dec 27, 2007)

tonying said:


> One thing to keep in mind when comparing with dogs is that dogs have been bred to their current forms through artificial selection to promote certain traits, which may have amplified the impact of undesirable genes which have in turn have reduced their overall fitness. The frogs, on the other hand, are the result of natural selection and thus should be very fit for survival (at least survival under the conditions they originate from). Consequently, maintaining bloodlines may be a good way of maintaining fitness, thus increasing the chances of successful re-introduction into their natural setting, if that needs to be done.


Yes, but continuous line breeding and the inevitable inbreeding that occurs because of this cause many health problems. What do you think happens when there is only one bloodline available, and from the few original frogs of this bloodline imported, we end up with thousands? Look at the results every time a species has it's gene bank bottlenecked then attempts to come back from it(cheetahs are a perfect example here)
I'm not using this as an argument to support the hybridization of frogs, but merely using evidence already available to suggest that these frogs should be healthy and may enjoy increased vigor


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## frogparty (Dec 27, 2007)

Wild frogs breeding and being naturally selected for fitness is one thing, where many young are naturally culled, and many many bloodlines exist in a select population. In captivity, we are working with limited bloodlines, and much inbreeding takes place, especially with rarer morphs. Look at terribilis, where up until recently you could probably count the bloodlines of each morph on one hand. There's not much natural selection going on in captivity.


And honestly, I am not holding my breath for the successful reintroduction of our captive frogs into the wild any time soon. There's no sign of stopping chytrid as of yet, and until there gets to be some real headway there, at least we can preserve them in captivity. The need to track our frogs origins is going to be an increasing need if we want to prevent the further degradation of the genetic potential of the species we keep.


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## tonying (Mar 6, 2008)

frogparty said:


> Yes, but continuous line breeding and the inevitable inbreeding that occurs because of this cause many health problems. What do you think happens when there is only one bloodline available, and from the few original frogs of this bloodline imported, we end up with thousands? Look at the results every time a species has it's gene bank bottlenecked then attempts to come back from it(cheetahs are a perfect example here)
> I'm not using this as an argument to support the hybridization of frogs, but merely using evidence already available to suggest that these frogs should be healthy and may enjoy increased vigor


I agree fully, every effort should be made to maintain a healthy genetic diversity in the frogs and artificial rearing may be part of the problem (as I've stated in another thread). So, while I can understand the rationale behind maintaining bloodlines and that hybrids are not necessarily more fit in terms of survival, inbreeding is a very serious risk too. In the case of early generation hybrids and especially accidental ones, I see no reason to dispute your assumption that they should be healthier. The serious problems arise when breeding is done selectively with specific traits in mind.


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## markbudde (Jan 4, 2008)

RedEyeTroyFrog said:


> ok Jack,
> i liked your post, particularly you question about what if we found a hybrid tinctorius in the wild? .... this made me laugh because i feel that we already have found hybrids, but we dont actually consider them hybrids, when a different morph is discovered in the wild it gets a name, either of the explorer or say its daughter or its locale. So i guess to answer you question. It would never happen, because , for example, the frog that was posted on amphibian arks website, no one knows much about it, but yet since amphibian ark found it in the wild? Its not a cross- its a new morph...


Troy, keep in mind that these won't breed true. The offspring of these will look like everything from a alanis to a cit, probably with all sorts of new traits appearing. A population of these in the wild would be very variable in appearance.
-mark


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## RedEyeTroyFrog (Jan 25, 2008)

thanks Mark i will keep that in mind, like i said i dont play on breeding them, but if they do ill keep an a couple clutches to see what turns out... where are u getting this information from btw, id like to read up on it, thanks
-Troy


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## markbudde (Jan 4, 2008)

My point for bringing this up is that you wouldn't find a population of frogs which look like this. If a population of frogs began with 2 hybrids, the population would be very variable. They would not all look like your frogs. 

The first generation of hybrids are called F1, and each generation of further inbreeding is called F2, F3... Where the number is the number of times they have been inbred. 

The F1 are all genetically half alanis, half citronella. This means they are all relatively similar.
The F2 frogs will be anywhere from full alanis to full citronella. Furthermore, they might be 100% similar to some aspect of alanis and 100% similar to citronella in another aspect. Or the reverse. 

This is the same reason why plant breeders need to re-make hybrid plants every year. If you buy a hybrid tomato plant, you can't cross it to itself to get more seeds, because the F2 plants will not be the same as the F1 plants. To get that same hybrid plant, you need to recross the parent strains together.

*To you geneticists, I'm aware that this is an oversimplification, but it is accurate.


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## frogparty (Dec 27, 2007)

you can back cross hybrids to stabilize them, they just don't end up looking like the original f1's all the time. By taking f1's and breeding back to parent plants, or other f1 offspring the crosses stabilize over time, and don't necessarily need to be remade every year. Most of the time nowadays, crosses are remade with superior parent stock to try and increase the quality of the resulting f1, especially in the orchid world. Once a hybrid is stabilized, breeding the stabilized f4's or whatever they are together produces very similar offspring, then the rare mutations from these crosses end up becoming highly coveted clones because there is little chance that the particular trait that set that single plant apart will be bred out again. 
So in the frog world, if a canyon or something gets cut off from an influx or outflow of genes, and there were 2 distinct morphs there at the start, once they start to breed together, the f1's will all look similar for the most part, the f2 offspring from these hybrids will vary greatly, then subsequent breedings will eventually start looking more and more similar until... voila! a new morph is created. These wouldn't necessarily look like the original f1 offspring of the cross, but they would eventually all look similar.


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## buddha (Oct 17, 2006)

I think they are a Sexy looking frog. Colors are nice and contrasts well..


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## Jellyman (Mar 6, 2006)

I guess my confusion comes into play when I read threads about zoos that are successfully breeding extinct or near extinct frogs and culling the offspring because they were not authorized to breed them. This goes completely against the arguement of being against hybrids because it destroys the true bloodline in the case of reintroducing frogs back to the wild. 

I guess I would rather hear people just say they think it is morally wrong to cross breed rather then try to justify why it is OK for anyone to own a frog that was essentially collected from the wild. And yes, even CB frogs have their roots from thousands of frogs that were removed from the wild before captive populations were established.


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## frogparty (Dec 27, 2007)

Not all frogs in the hobby originated from thousands of wild caught individuals.
Its my understanding that mint terribilis were only imported in extremely limited numbers and there may only be 1 or 2 real bloodlines in the us. Then, there is the issue of major breeders offering offspring from the same pairs over and over again, those offspring being bred with other hobbyists frogs purchased from the same source, and so on and so forth. 

Some frogs in the hobby surely have enough genetic backing for sustained viability, while others most definitely don't without continual influx of new genes.


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## Jellyman (Mar 6, 2006)

frogparty said:


> Not all frogs in the hobby originated from thousands of wild caught individuals.
> Its my understanding that mint terribilis were only imported in extremely limited numbers and there may only be 1 or 2 real bloodlines in the us. Then, there is the issue of major breeders offering offspring from the same pairs over and over again, those offspring being bred with other hobbyists frogs purchased from the same source, and so on and so forth.
> 
> Some frogs in the hobby surely have enough genetic backing for sustained viability, while others most definitely don't without continual influx of new genes.



So then more terribillis need to be removed from the wild to make a viable bank of captive genes?? Would it not be better(and more in line with the arguement) to end the removal of any new species of frogs from the wild and concentrate on habit preservation. I gues that cannot really happen with species currently in the trade since it would be next to impossible to determine if they were illegally taken from the wild or captive bred.

It is my understanding that imbreed animals have many more issues then cross breed animals. Am I wrong in this assessment??


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## Brian Ferriera (Nov 1, 2006)

Jellyman said:


> So then more terribillis need to be removed from the wild to make a viable bank of captive genes?? Would it not be better(and more in line with the arguement) to end the removal of any new species of frogs from the wild and concentrate on habit preservation. I gues that cannot really happen with species currently in the trade since it would be next to impossible to determine if they were illegally taken from the wild or captive bred.


You really need to ask Mark Pulowski (i hope i dint butcher your name that bad sir!) about this but I am pretty shore thier where 6 bloodlines that came in on the mint terribilis but they where not labeled as what blood line was what...I am not shore on the orange but I think ALL the yellows came from 1 pr of frogs....
Brian


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## frogparty (Dec 27, 2007)

I knew one of the terribilis came from very limited bloodline. New lines are being imported now, I noticed, and as I stated in the wc vs cb thread, I don't have an issue with professionals importing limited numbers of wc animals in for the specific purpose of establishing new bloodlines that can be tracked by the breeding hobbyists who want to insure they can get the most diverse crossing for their animals, which is why I think that asn is such a great program, especially when we are dealing with such limited bloodlines in several cases. And yes, it would have been nice if bloodlines from previous imports would have been catalogued better, but there is nothing we can really do about that now. 
But to get back on topic... sorry for the diversion troy... I think these are neat looking frogs, and hope they live a long time for you. I understand wanting to know about morphology, recessive vs dominant color traits, etc. We with inquisitive minds find ourselves pondering these things often, I'd bet, and from an amatuer perspective this is definitely one way to try and find some answers. Not that I think its an acceptable reason to go around crossing morphs willy nilly, but thats not the origin of these particular frogs. Nice pics, and would like to see some new pics of that 150 gallon


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## RedEyeTroyFrog (Jan 25, 2008)

its quite alright, i dont mind where the conversation has gone,, i will post pics of the 150 gallon when the frogs are in there and im happy with it


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Jellyman said:


> It is my understanding that imbreed animals have many more issues then cross breed animals. Am I wrong in this assessment??


It depends on how the inbreeding was managed. If the population is managed to maximize the genetic diversity based on the number of founders then it won't have a lot of effect or in a natural population where there are selective pressures working on any negative traits then its not a problem either. 
Cross bred animals implies that the animal was out bred to a seperate species. Depending on the out cross there may be hybrid vigor but this is often paired with infertility. (for example see mules and hinneys or in the case of frogs have calls that are unattractive for either of the parent species (see Wiley InterScience :: Session Cookies) 

Some comments,

Ed


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

frogparty said:


> So in the frog world, if a canyon or something gets cut off from an influx or outflow of genes, and there were 2 distinct morphs there at the start, once they start to breed together, the f1's will all look similar for the most part, the f2 offspring from these hybrids will vary greatly, then subsequent breedings will eventually start looking more and more similar until... voila! a new morph is created. These wouldn't necessarily look like the original f1 offspring of the cross, but they would eventually all look similar.


Not necessarily. This is an assumption based on a lack of impact on predation and/or mate selection on the coloration of the populations. If the mate selection choices are strong enough or predation is strong enough, then there may be no changes in the patterns as the intermediates would either be removed from the populations or predated upon. This is what appears to be occuring with pumilio in the wild and why there are so many different populations. 
(see Wiley InterScience :: Session Cookies AND Interspecific and intraspecific views of color signals in the strawberry poison frog Dendrobates pumilio -- Siddiqi et al. 207 (14): 2471 -- Journal of Experimental Biology for some references)

Ed



Ed


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## frogparty (Dec 27, 2007)

intersting point there, so the pumilio populations overlap that much to where there could be mixing of morphs, but mate color selection is keeping the lines more or less true? what kind of overlap do the morphs have, and what is the predation pressure on them? Something must eat them, spiders snakes etc. Is there documentation of hybridization between morphs, or proof of lack there of, or when we see all these different morphs in similar locations is it not the end result of mixing between 2 or more different morphs?


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Jellyman said:


> I guess my confusion comes into play when I read threads about zoos that are successfully breeding extinct or near extinct frogs and culling the offspring because they were not authorized to breed them. This goes completely against the arguement of being against hybrids because it destroys the true bloodline in the case of reintroducing frogs back to the wild.


I don't think you understand this if you think it destroys the true bloodline.... Population management in this case is done hand in hand of genetic management of the animals. The population's genetic diversity is maintained through breeding the most unrelated animals according to mathmatical forumula to ensure maximal genetic diversity for a minimum of 500 years. 
To prevent the population from overrunning the available holding space, offspring from animals that are too closely related (for example siblings) are euthanized. To minimize the loss of genetically valuable animals, new institutions gain experience by holding and breeding animals that are siblings and as such are not genetically diverse. The females should be bred to prevent egg retention, and prolapses which will kill the females. These eggs are used to provide experience for the new institution to rear them to metamorphosis and then the institution if it so desires can then aquire a frog or frogs which will allow them to breed animals that maximize the genetics of the population. By doing this the maximum genetical background is maintained which increases the ability to sustain the population in the long run as well as giving the frogs the best chance of being able to be returned to the wild if the conditions ever improve. 

Ed


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## frogparty (Dec 27, 2007)

So say on bastimentos island, where several different color morphs exist, do orange always select orange for mates, and so on? what kind of research and documentation has been done with this? Do the different color morphs occupy different parts of the island? Arethey seperated by uncrossable boundaries?


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

frogparty said:


> intersting point there, so the pumilio populations overlap that much to where there could be mixing of morphs, but mate color selection is keeping the lines more or less true? what kind of overlap do the morphs have, and what is the predation pressure on them? Something must eat them, spiders snakes etc. Is there documentation of hybridization between morphs, or proof of lack there of, or when we see all these different morphs in similar locations is it not the end result of mixing between 2 or more different morphs?



Mainly only in Panama.. 
I refer you to the first link to this abstract and to the paper 

snip "Results Our results provide quantitative evidence for extreme polymorphism among populations, and more limited levels of polymorphism within some populations. No obvious signs of sexual dimorphism were found. All the colour morphs appear to have relatively little reflectance in the ultraviolet part of the spectrum. There is some evidence for clinal variation in colour and pattern across some mainland populations. There is also at least one area where distinctly different morphs occur in sympatry, suggesting the possibility of incipient reproductive isolation. We argue that variation in coloration may have been enhanced by sexual selection."endsnip

Note the reference to polymorphism within the population. One of the islands (which I can't remember off the top of my head) three morphs are found together and the females tend to choose males of the same pattern as themselves...... 

Ed


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

frogparty said:


> I knew one of the terribilis came from very limited bloodline. New lines are being imported now,



If they are managed correctly limited founders can be dealt with an overcome provided that an effort is made to manage the population (seconding the plug for ASN). For example przewalski's horses are decended from 9 founders and were managed successfully enough that they were successfully released. 

Ed


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

jackj921 said:


> What would the conservationistas say to keeping and propagating and existing wild caught pair of hybrids. If there were a naturally occurring hybrid population in a very small area of Costa Rica would it be OK to acquire and breed them with a goal of expanding that population? Is the answer that if it occurs naturally it is OK but if humans create it, it is not?
> When does a group of similar hybrids in the wild become a "morph"? (Is Darwin still alive?)
> In my newbie view, with the small number of people who keep Darts today and the even smaller number of hybrids available to anyone, I think the weakest argument against hybrids is the remotely possible introduction into the wild, at least at the present time.


Some clarification here.. as I understand the thread.. the discussion is due to a crossing of two different morphs of the same species. There are no fertility issues with the offspring as they are the same species... 
with respect to the integradation of a morph between two different patterns on the same species.. this depends. If it is stable in and of itself then it is due to specific pressures in that region which shows that it is a morph in its own right as the other two patterns do less well in that region. If it is not a stable pattern in and of its own right then that shows that the pattern is not sufficient to enable survivial in that location and then it is of little conservation value other than as a curiosity. The fact that neither of the parental color patterns is sufficient to enable it to survive over the other is also indication that area is probably a population sink and not suitable for either species overall. 

Ed


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## frogparty (Dec 27, 2007)

but look at the long term decline of the cheetah, where the last ice age bottlenecked their population substantially and once favorable habitat conditions returned, the reproductive success of the remaining animals is so extremely limited, and as such they are most likely facing iminent extinction from too shallow of a gene pool. Same thing happening to the lions of ngorogoro crater, except its not an ice age, but isolation both natural and artificial-human induced- has created such extreme problems in their reproductive systems(2 headed sperm, other sperm mutations, outright sterility etc) And without the influx of new genetic material, are almost certain to face the same end. With prezwalski's horse, only time will tell if enough diversity has been preserved to prevent these kind of problems.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

ZeeMan said:


> 2. If a species is going extinct, to reintroduce them to the wild, and counting the factors of disasters, area-specific environmental influences, macro environmental influence, prey, predators, sq. footage necessary, pollutants...how many frogs would we have to introduce to establish a viable population? 100? 200?
> .


For how long do you want to conserve them? 

Ideally to maintain a population as genetically diverse as the original wild population you need a certain number of founders but the goal can be accomplished with less. 

Ed


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

frogparty said:


> but look at the long term decline of the cheetah, where the last ice age bottlenecked their population substantially and once favorable habitat conditions returned, the reproductive success of the remaining animals is so extremely limited, and as such they are most likely facing iminent extinction from too shallow of a gene pool. Same thing happening to the lions of ngorogoro crater, except its not an ice age, but isolation both natural and artificial-human induced- has created such extreme problems in their reproductive systems(2 headed sperm, other sperm mutations, outright sterility etc) And without the influx of new genetic material, are almost certain to face the same end. With prezwalski's horse, only time will tell if enough diversity has been preserved to prevent these kind of problems.


Except with the horse there have been genetic studies, evaluations of sperm etc and they are not showing those effects. Cheetah are a bad example as the population is so inbred that you can perform grafts from one cheetah onto another with no rejection of the transplanted tissues. Genetic bottlenecks are not always the obstacle that they are often made out to be as it depends on the diversity present in the bottleneck. 
In addition bottlenecks are not always negative for the population.. for example various populations of survivors of plague events are going to be selected for genetic resistance and the other alleles that represent susceptiability are culled resulting in a loss of diversity. If the event is severe enough and persists long enough, the resistant survivors can be bottlenecked... 

Ed


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

RedEyeTroyFrog said:


> for example, the frog that was posted on amphibian arks website, no one knows much about it, but yet since amphibian ark found it in the wild? Its not a cross- its a new morph... this is the frog i was referring to


From the conversation I have had with some researchers it is a true locality color variation and is not the product of a intercrossing of current color morphs (remember selective pressures...) and the reason there isn't any information available is one word.. smuggling. There are a lot of people who want to get thier hands on that frog and the locality. It is from Brazil... 

[/QUOTE]. Am I really the only person to date that has actually done this nad gone public with it? I can seem to find any information about any studies on this, what has come of the cross offspring, were they fertile? I know that there has been a couple of cross tinctorius in the past, 
[/QUOTE]

Crosses of different tinctorius patterns are going to be fertile as it is the same species. I'm not sure of what informational value you think would come from the crosses as repeating the cross between different parents of the same color variation can produce different color variants depending on how genetically identical they are to the original cross. In other words, if you got the same color pattern adults from a different breeder whose frogs were distantly related to yours you could get different colored offspring when crossed. So the idea that the morph cross will always produce the same pattern is incorrect. If you find an old copy of Terrarium Animals Breeding, Care, Maintance, TFH publications, look at the variation in patterns in a single species documented in there......


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## ZeeMan (Sep 19, 2008)

Ed said:


> For how long do you want to conserve them?
> 
> Ideally to maintain a population as genetically diverse as the original wild population you need a certain number of founders but the goal can be accomplished with less.
> 
> Ed


If we were to conserve them (in an idealistic world, where their habitat is preserved and pristine), I would hope it would be a long time.

Can we do it with less? Another question that popped up in my head is...our frogs lack the natural defenses, poisons and natural parasite fighting capabilities, the wild frogs have, if we were to reintroduce them would not a large portion be taken out?

Fortunately, I think the frogs size work in their favor in reintroductions, also the size, variety and quantity of prey items works in their favor. Although it would make monitoring their recovery only that much more difficult.

I am only saying this because, as much as I would like to believe otherwise, I think frog reintroductions are going to be really difficult. Though when the environmental conditions are better, I think amphibian conservation ought to be attempted.


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## Brian Ferriera (Nov 1, 2006)

ZeeMan said:


> I am only saying this because, as much as I would like to believe otherwise, I think frog reintroductions are going to be really difficult. Though when the environmental conditions are better, I think amphibian conservation ought to be attempted.


Reintroducing any thing can be tuff thats not to say its impossible.
Brian


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

ZeeMan said:


> If we were to conserve them (in an idealistic world, where their habitat is preserved and pristine), I would hope it would be a long time.
> 
> Can we do it with less?.


It can be done with less..ideally 100 founders with proper management can preserve a similar genetic diversity as seen in the wild population for up to 500 years with proper management. 

With fewer numbers to start you can manage the population but it requires a more intensive effort. This is one of the reasons TWI got off the ground (Tree Walkers) and the specific purpose of ASN. 



ZeeMan said:


> Another question that popped up in my head is...our frogs lack the natural defenses, poisons and natural parasite fighting capabilities, the wild frogs have, if we were to reintroduce them would not a large portion be taken out?


This can be gotten around by conducting reintroductions as tadpoles in those frogs that are not obligate egg feeders. With the obligates, setting up enclosures to acclimate the animals so excess parasite loads can be managed until they get established is the way around it. (tadpoles are how they are conducting the reintroduction of the Puerto Rican Crested toads which is working..)




ZeeMan said:


> I am only saying this because, as much as I would like to believe otherwise, I think frog reintroductions are going to be really difficult. Though when the environmental conditions are better, I think amphibian conservation ought to be attempted.


At this time, virtually none of the dendrobates (or other anurans) in the hobby are being managed in any manner that will allow them to be reintroduced. The only way this could in theory be considered would be if all of the frogs of that species were extirpated in the wild and there was an intrest by the goverment of that country of reintroducing them. 

Ed


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## Dendrobait (May 29, 2005)

RedEyeTroyFrog said:


> ok ive got some catching up to do, its st patties day still where im at and im just getting home from the bar. . . but this is the post that kinda rattled me.
> 
> You say these frogs are not particularly "nice looking" ?? id like to know what fits your line of description for "nice looking"
> 
> ...


Alot of times people ask in the flaming red hybrid threads if you cross morphs will you get something totally outrageous and distinct looking. Based on your frogs(which look quite normal to my uneducated eye, although(like all tincs) they are beautiful), that is not the case. I will go ahead and bet that if additional crosses were done+mutations/recessive genes coming to light the results would be definetly different from wild frogs.(as has happened in other hobbies...see below)

But I agree somewhat on your last paragraph, but if we are talking of conserving populations, their is more to the frog that meets the eye. Perhaps different populations have different adaptations(breeding behavior etc.?) that may help them in the wild. Of course we have no idea if these too will be lost in captivity. I kinda doubt reintroduction efforts(if they ever do occur) will be too concerned what color the frogs hopping around are, so long as they are their. But its best to be safe. But I guess keeping bloodlines pure means hobbyists have what can be described as an ambassador of the wild frogs. Creating new strains or morphs in captivity would take this away, and they would become pets just like another domestic animal. Not many look at a budgie or a swordtail and think of the plight of the species in the natural habitat.

Just thoughts from someone who doesn't even have dart frogs ATM
~Joseph


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## swampfoxjjr (Nov 13, 2007)

Ed said:


> Some clarification here.. as I understand the thread.. the discussion is due to a crossing of two different morphs of the same species. There are no fertility issues with the offspring as they are the same species...
> with respect to the integradation of a morph between two different patterns on the same species.. this depends. If it is stable in and of itself then it is due to specific pressures in that region which shows that it is a morph in its own right as the other two patterns do less well in that region. If it is not a stable pattern in and of its own right then that shows that the pattern is not sufficient to enable survivial in that location and then it is of little conservation value other than as a curiosity. The fact that neither of the parental color patterns is sufficient to enable it to survive over the other is also indication that area is probably a population sink and not suitable for either species overall.
> 
> Ed


Ed, thank you for posting this. Would you not agree that lacking this simple definition knowledge (specifically the definition of species) should perhaps have been a deterent to this "experiment" given that without proper understanding of the basic definition of essential terms one cannot formulate a meaningful hypothesis without which no experiment can technically occur? I guess what I am trying to say is I don't understand what was supposed to be learned by this. A 70% Yellow adult female Tinc mates with a 75% Black adult male Tinc and you get offspring more yellow than the latter and more black than the former...EUREKA!!

Pardon the sarcasm but it just calls into question the supposed "deeper scientific agenda" behind this thread (and its predecessors). I am curious to hear your thoughts on how this public display of an unpopular practice aids or for that matter hinders the work of ASN or the hobby as a whole. Also, on a related note, your thoughts on how, if at all, crossbreeding Tinctorius morphs betters the species or the specific breeder frogs if nature has not yet seen fit to produce such crosses in the wild would be most appreciated.


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## frogparty (Dec 27, 2007)

I believe these were accidental hybrids that were allowed to live out of curiosity, not the purposeful hybridization of 2 different morphs. Pictureswere I believe posted just for the sake of appreciation of nicely taken pics, with no emphasis on promoting this behavior in the future by others, or even troy


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## Paul G (Feb 27, 2007)

Ed said:


> This is what appears to be occuring with pumilio in the wild and why there are so many different populations.
> (see Wiley InterScience :: Session Cookies AND Interspecific and intraspecific views of color signals in the strawberry poison frog Dendrobates pumilio -- Siddiqi et al. 207 (14): 2471 -- Journal of Experimental Biology for some references)
> 
> Ed


Take a look at the pic from this study. Just sharing. An Error Occurred Setting Your User Cookie



swampfoxjjr said:


> Pardon the sarcasm but it just calls into question the supposed "deeper scientific agenda" behind this thread (and its predecessors). I am curious to hear your thoughts on how this public display of an unpopular practice aids or for that matter hinders the work of ASN or the hobby as a whole. Also, on a related note, your thoughts on how, if at all, crossbreeding Tinctorius morphs betters the species or the specific breeder frogs if nature has not yet seen fit to produce such crosses in the wild would be most appreciated.


I agree. I just don't see the point other than to get attention. Why not register with ASN and do something useful. I really don't buy the "it was an accident" factor either. This is the only occurrence right? I've seen YouTube vids of yours Troy; with orange & mint terribilis in the same tank apparently cause another tank was not setup properly yet. Nice pics though. Do what you want though.


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## MzFroggie (Mar 22, 2008)

Dang Troy I could have swore you said that this wasn't a post for some to bash. OMG get over it the guy did what he wanted to do with HIS frogs for whatever reason. I personally understand where some of you come from with regards to cross breeding and I don't mix species, but goodness just give it a break already. Are you serious 8 pages of reply's. On another note I brought a pair of frogs from someone who made a negative comment on this post, and I swear that it is a cross breed because it doesn't even compare to frogs I have of the same species. An that is all I will say. But if it bothers you so much click off of the dang thread.


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## RedEyeTroyFrog (Jan 25, 2008)

gothaicus said:


> Take a look at the pic from this study. Just sharing. An Error Occurred Setting Your User Cookie
> 
> 
> 
> I agree. I just don't see the point other than to get attention. Why not register with ASN and do something useful. I really don't buy the "it was an accident" factor either. This is the only occurrence right? I've seen YouTube vids of yours Troy; with orange & mint terribilis in the same tank apparently cause another tank was not setup properly yet. Nice pics though. Do what you want though.


yeah those videos were posted months ago, I have 4 orange in a 44 gallon since October, and i have 2 mints in a 20 since October. I really could care less what you believe, im just letting ppl know it was done purposely, but it was the first of any of my frogs that ever bred, i have set up pair tanks that were not breeding at the time, so these being my first egg, i knew that it was not looked at highly, but i could not resist learning the breeding behavior, egg development, and just the curiosity of what would come of them. . . oh btw the breeder i got all the terribs from, i asked him if it would be ok to have all the terribs in the tank, temporarily until the mints tank was set up, and he said yes im sure they will be fine.
-Troy

oh btw Mzfroggie, thanks for gettin ma back, but honestly i really didn't think there was all that much bashing...thanks tho


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## darkpilatus (May 25, 2006)

Peace said:


> It's like falconry, the government doesn't want the wrong people to be getting into this hobby. If it was available to everyone their would be more Dart Frog releases into the wild.
> 
> 
> Went a local zoo like a month ago. Monday they got their first darts. Went to see them on wednesday, wednesday- pathetic looking frogs... thursday- no frogs
> ...


This thread just keeps getting better and better...


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

swampfoxjjr said:


> Would you not agree that lacking this simple definition knowledge (specifically the definition of species) should perhaps have been a deterent to this "experiment" given that without proper understanding of the basic definition of essential terms one cannot formulate a meaningful hypothesis without which no experiment can technically occur? I guess what I am trying to say is I don't understand what was supposed to be learned by this. A 70% Yellow adult female Tinc mates with a 75% Black adult male Tinc and you get offspring more yellow than the latter and more black than the former...EUREKA!!.


You are asking for a personal opinion so I am going to give you one.... you are making some assumptions that I don't think help with the whole issue. On a back read other than the idea that there may be fertility issues which was implied or mentioned in several posts by various people, I don't think the whole species idea was really the idea behind it so that doesn't change the idea behind the hypothesis. Which was to see what happened when those two particular frogs from two different morphs of the same species were crossed. This was then documented in the pictures. 





swampfoxjjr said:


> Pardon the sarcasm but it just calls into question the supposed "deeper scientific agenda" behind this thread (and its predecessors). I am curious to hear your thoughts on how this public display of an unpopular practice aids or for that matter hinders the work of ASN or the hobby as a whole. Also, on a related note, your thoughts on how, if at all, crossbreeding Tinctorius morphs betters the species or the specific breeder frogs if nature has not yet seen fit to produce such crosses in the wild would be most appreciated.


I don't think there is a deeper scientific agenda other than curiosity. Now that this is considered misplaced by the hobby in general doesn't invalidate the curiosity. 

I am not in favor of hybrids for a number of reasons but the following are the primary reasons 
1) at this time it, based on some basic projections we currently do not have sufficient members in the hobby to maintain the current selection of species and as a consequence we see the boom and bust cycles of popularity and each one reduces the genetic variability as the populations typically crash down to only a relatively few animals. Some of the frogs in the hobby have may have done this more than once. 
2) People often aquire a frog and decide that they do not agree with the identification and post pictures asking what do people think it is and by popular acclaim assign it to a morph that may be different than the it really is. This is something that could very easily happen with hybrids between species and crosses between morphs and the result is a serious problem for the long term maitenance of the pure populations of those species. 
3) Dendrobatids can live for a long time and a failure to properly mark crosses and hybrids means that if a person gets out of the hobby a purchaser or even a reseller can misidentify the frogs. 

As for bettering the frogs, I think I conveyed the proper information earlier in the thread when discussing a number of issues and at this time I do not see the need to repeat them. 

Some comments,

Ed


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## swampfoxjjr (Nov 13, 2007)

As always, Ed, thank you for your insight. Very well said and I appreciate your candor. I agree with you wholeheartedly. Also, I think I was typing my response when you were laying out your benefits to the individual frogs (such as not egg binding the female zateki) so my aplogies for that section as clearly I missed it.


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## evolvstll (Feb 17, 2007)

I am going to throw this out there since no one has looked at Troys original post when he first mentioned the 4 frogs in a mixed tank and asking for advice on what to do because the alanis and the cit seemed to be courting.............

I was the first one to respond to that original post and told him that if they were to be kept together and allowed to even lay eggs that they he should cull them!

So the scientific or whatever excuse for why he let these frogs even morph I do not buy. This is not responsible producing these hybrids. Now these pictures are being posted and trying to explain that they are responsible???????????????

Here is a link to the thread............................

http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/general-discussion/27141-i-know-frowned-upon-but.html


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## afterdark (Jan 16, 2007)

Personally, I think Ed's post above sums it up the best so far:


Ed said:


> I am not in favor of hybrids for a number of reasons but the following are the primary reasons
> 1) at this time it, based on some basic projections we currently do not have sufficient members in the hobby to maintain the current selection of species and as a consequence we see the boom and bust cycles of popularity and each one reduces the genetic variability as the populations typically crash down to only a relatively few animals. Some of the frogs in the hobby have may have done this more than once.
> 2) People often aquire a frog and decide that they do not agree with the identification and post pictures asking what do people think it is and by popular acclaim assign it to a morph that may be different than the it really is. This is something that could very easily happen with hybrids between species and crosses between morphs and the result is a serious problem for the long term maitenance of the pure populations of those species.
> 3) Dendrobatids can live for a long time and a failure to properly mark crosses and hybrids means that if a person gets out of the hobby a purchaser or even a reseller can misidentify the frogs.
> ...


"Scientific study" or not, these frogs are not good for the hobby in general. That is the bottom line, in my opinion.


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## Ben E (Oct 1, 2004)

do you think that the responsible reproduction of well documented hybrid localities could shift some of the rabid consumerism that plagues this hobby away from new importations? I liked Ed's comments, and some of those points could be used to argue against influxes of new species/localities to the hobby. Hybrids will be a part of this hobby in the next 5 years like it or not. As an observer of the hobby i think that it is just driven too much by ego, materialism, and "collector mentality" to not tap into what hybrids can bring. Love it or hate it it is just part of the culture im afraid. Did hybrids destroy the orchid hobbyists? As long as they are well documented i do not think hybrid darts will destroy this hobby. May even make it more interesting for those with a shorter attention span.


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## evolvstll (Feb 17, 2007)

Ben E said:


> do you think that the responsible reproduction of well documented hybrid localities could shift some of the rabid consumerism that plagues this hobby away from new importations? I liked Ed's comments, and some of those points could be used to argue against influxes of new species/localities to the hobby. Hybrids will be a part of this hobby in the next 5 years like it or not. As an observer of the hobby i think that it is just driven too much by ego, materialism, and "collector mentality" to not tap into what hybrids can bring. Love it or hate it it is just part of the culture im afraid. Did hybrids destroy the orchid hobbyists? As long as they are well documented i do not think hybrid darts will destroy this hobby. May even make it more interesting for those with a shorter attention span.


With the way this thread was left alone you just may be right. This is not the orchid or reptile hobby. Keeping with the feeders and habitat construction, basically time and commitment it takes. In the long run, years not months.........do we really want to create hybrids to draw people to the hobby?

Look at it this way, we are in a unique position to stand our ground and say not going to happen here with hybrids. This is the forum for the hobby. All of the stuff said by Troy is junk. These creatures with their possible life spans out live our short attention spans. In my previous post I am saying that all of this hybrid crud by Troy is to be called what it is............junk and this thread and he should have been called out long before this. Look at the date to his post about his mixed tank that I responded to.......................and he is claiming years of experience? 

It is the stance of this board that hybrids are 'bad'. 5 years down the line? I say that it is not responsible for all of our members here to stand by and let Troy keep a thread like this going. 

So am I out of line.................I believe not........Hybrid are bad and so is Troy for producing them, especially so many that he has no intention of keeping for the 12+ years of their life span.
So am I the only one that feels this way, am I out of line?


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## skylsdale (Sep 16, 2007)

evolvstll said:


> This is not the orchid or reptile hobby.


What many people may not realize is that both of those hobbies went through (and are still going through) phases and crazes of designer morphs, hybrids, etc. so much so that in some instances obtaining wild type forms of certain species within the hobby became impossible. This then fueled pushes for further collection of wild animals so the hobby could actually have some wild type animals once again...which are then put through selective breeding, the creation of designer morphs and hybrids, etc. And so the cycle continues...on and on and on.


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## xfrogx (Jul 5, 2006)

I've always stayed out of these type of threads. IMO, We have a tough enough time knowing where these frogs come from and their true lineage anyway, I would vote 'nay' on the hybrids.


P.S. I have years of experience and feel this is a good time to speak up, I think more of the 'Pros' if you will or hobbyist that have breed for a few years, should speak up more often and let the beginners know this is not tolerated.


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## Roadrunner (Mar 6, 2004)

Hybrids are out there. I saw my first over 10 years ago at Lee Watsons show(i think it was a cobalt azureus). What worries me more is the hybrids we all have in our collections. You don`t know how many times over the years I`ve seen panama or nicaraguan auratus sold as costa rican, because they were hot at the time. i`ve seen every morph of tricolor called santa isabel. I have hobbyists come to my table and tell me about the cobalt tincs they have breeding that the male is 2 x the size of the female(dwarf female and surinam male). 
There are 2 hobbies in the dart world, those who mix and will hybridize and those that want it pure(db). The dart hobby is part of the larger reptile trade. There always will be hybrids, like it or not. What worries me more is the unknown hybrids circulating, they can do much more damage. I know it sounds like a mess, but just like other laws, if it`s driven into the shadows we can`t learn from it and why would anyone, after this, mention it in public? It seems it`d do more damage than good to be split. People who want hybrids could help conservation, also, if they`re not shut out. The one unifying trait is that we`re all interested and curious about dart frogs.

Register your known lines!


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## Jellyman (Mar 6, 2006)

evolvstll said:


> am I out of line?


I think you have every right to feel and beleive what you do. I do think you are out of line telling someone they have to have your same beliefs and that a thread oppossing your beliefs cannot/should not be allowed and if it is, it is junk. 

I personally do not feel the need to have hybrid frogs but I do not feel my opinion should dictate what others do. It has been stated in other threads and again in this one by other members that hybrids are out there and will make it into the hobby probably sooner then later. I believe from watching this forum for the last 3 years that there are alot more mixed tanks and hybrid frogs out there then anyone wants to admit. I think the question is, what can we do to maintain accurate records of true bloodline frogs. I think there are great steps in place and as long as the true blood line hobbiest stay loyal to their cause and only buy from breeders that have a proven track record that the bloodlines can remain clean. 

Just my two cents and you all know how much two cents buys these days


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## Ryan (Feb 18, 2004)

Keep in mind future problems this kind of actions can create, misslabled animals breeding with full blood morphs, the cost of hybrids and even albinos driving down the price of wild type animals. Look how rare wild type betas are,and look at the other herp hobbies...


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## jehitch (Jun 8, 2007)

frogfarm said:


> Hybrids are out there. I saw my first over 10 years ago at Lee Watsons show(i think it was a cobalt azureus). What worries me more is the hybrids we all have in our collections. You don`t know how many times over the years I`ve seen panama or nicaraguan auratus sold as costa rican, because they were hot at the time. i`ve seen every morph of tricolor called santa isabel. I have hobbyists come to my table and tell me about the cobalt tincs they have breeding that the male is 2 x the size of the female(dwarf female and surinam male).
> (snip)


And from Ed:


> 2) People often aquire a frog and decide that they do not agree with the identification and post pictures asking what do people think it is and by popular acclaim assign it to a morph that may be different than the it really is. This is something that could very easily happen with hybrids between species and crosses between morphs and the result is a serious problem for the long term maintenance of the pure populations of those species.


We really have an identification system that relies on trust for most of the morphs out there. That is why I agree with Aaron, when he said that known lines need to be registered.

The hobby is growing beyond the point where that trust is workable. When people are deciding what morph a frog is, based on appearance alone, or changing names to a "hotter" morph, registration seems the only solution.

A couple anecdotal examples:

1. I recently had somebody come in the store looking for "reduced pattern" New Rivers. After verifying my suspicions with a couple breeders, I told him I didn't think that was an actual morph, as it was based solely on appearance, rather than a distinct geographically-based, naturally occurring population. The buyer's response: "Oh, but the guy I got these from said they are more valuable." 

That sounds like Aaron's argument to me. That customer has returned three times to ask if I've been able to track down the frogs he's looking for, and I tell him each time the reason they are not considered a morph. And I watch his eyes glaze over.

2. Bowing to customer pressure, I brought in a few generic 2009-import strawberry pumilio imports. I keep them in the back, and only sell them to customers that seem to have the knowledge to care for them. I always tell them they can only be described as "2009 imports," and that we have no site data for them. A new customer came in, and asked about the availability of strawberry pumilio. After talking with him for a few minutes to see if he had any experience, I decided to show him my stock. I went through my whole discussion about site data and that these could only be described as generic imports. His response, "Oh, those are Bastimentos."

There's Ed's argument. It's hard to turn somebody away when they've got a $100 bill in their hand, and the store rent is due, but it's troubling that this guy - innocently or not - may represent these frogs as a specific morph.

In either case, as the hobby grows, all frogs without registration will at some point have to be considered suspect hybrids.

____
Jim


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## MELLOWROO421 (Feb 21, 2007)

I personally think that the biggest problem with this thread (aside from the fact that they were bred intentionally in the first place) is the potential to cause new dart enthusiasts to think that hybrids are ok if kept to themselves and not released into the hobby. As a new dart enthusiast there can be a lot of information to learn and grasp the reasoning for it all, and all too often we look at bits and pieces of a post instead of reading the whole discussion and make uninformed decisions based off of the little bit that we read. I would be willing to bet that if there were 10 or 15 more posts like this, a simple search for "hybrid" would yeild results that a newbie could very easily browse through and come to the wrong conclusion. Could you imagine if every other day we had to read about a new keepers hybrid, only to have them respond "I read that it was ok as long as I didn't sell them" or something to that effect. The disclaimers are not enough. It was irresponsible in the first place, and publicly displaying it is not helping the hobby and those of us who responsibly keep and breed these jewels. My .02


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## Jellyman (Mar 6, 2006)

jehitch said:


> In either case, as the hobby grows, all frogs without registration will at some point have to be considered suspect hybrids.
> 
> ____
> Jim


I think you are exactly correct. When I was looking into purchasing an albino red tail boa I purchased mine through a registered breeder and have documentation of the parents of the snake. I never planned to breed the snake but knew it would be easy to sell in the future if needed(probably for more) if I was able to show the lineage.


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## Brian Ferriera (Nov 1, 2006)

I think the biggest problem with the thread was from page 1 when the word hybrid is used.. Every time that word gets used this is where we end up fighting, bickering, pointing fingers. When this thread first came out I thank him for REPRESENTING his animals for what they are..I never said i liked them or agreed with them or thought them being maid was a good idea... Any one thats been paying attention to my stance on hybrids or has read my blogs on DB now where I stand on this...It's the same place where most people do. We don't need to beat a dead horse every time this word comes up...People have the right to make up thier own minds and us pushing our beliefs on them instead of explaining why we believe in it is not going to help the cause..Please lets just get back to the frogs and drop this before its a locked thread...
Brian


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## jhbenham9 (Dec 23, 2016)

I am sad this thread is so old, but thank you for sharing this.


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## Ravage (Feb 5, 2016)

It;s been 8 years since this thread started. So: how are they doing? Did they breed? Are the offspring sterile (mules)? If someone was actually up to applying scientific rigor to this, there might be something to learn here. That would require an outlay of time and $ to track the genetics all the way through, but it could be useful in understanding the crosses that have occurred naturally. Have we learned anything from this experiment?
An update would be excellent.


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## jhbenham9 (Dec 23, 2016)

I am praying for the same thing


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Ravage;2912081d? Are the offspring sterile (mules)? .[/QUOTE said:


> Highly unlikely as the cross is within the same species.
> 
> some comments
> 
> Ed


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## TheRoadToSwole (Jun 19, 2017)

Those are beautiful hybrids! Am I the only one that finds it refreshing to see an open minded opinion about hybrids and mixing species? I'm all for preserving bloodlines, maintaining pure genes and keeping the frogs free of aggression, but I see NO reason to approach hybridization for personal stock with such a negative and narrow minded view. With my whopping month of second hand experience that i have gathered from researching and lurking dart frog forums, I have a sneaky suspicion that mixing some species is going to be much less frowned upon as the hobby grows. (#sarcastic about my experience).


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## 55105 (Jan 27, 2015)

TheRoadToSwole said:


> Those are beautiful hybrids! Am I the only one that finds it refreshing to see an open minded opinion about hybrids and mixing species? I'm all for preserving bloodlines, maintaining pure genes and keeping the frogs free of aggression, but I see NO reason to approach hybridization for personal stock with such a negative and narrow minded view. With my whopping month of second hand experience that i have gathered from researching and lurking dart frog forums, I have a sneaky suspicion that mixing some species is going to be much less frowned upon as the hobby grows. (#sarcastic about my experience).


There's no reason to. We have such a vast array of beautiful frogs available to choose from already.

Why risk it? Frogs are one of the fastest disappearing species on the planet. Who knows, 10 years from now you may only get to see dart frogs in captivity. This hobby has managed to keep these animals very close to what you would see in nature, which is incredibly rare once humans get involved in breeding anything, be it plants, livestock, dogs, fish - everything usually goes out the window... We obviously won't be able to release our frogs to repopulate if they do go extinct in the wild but the least we can do is preserve the species so our grandkids don't just get to look at pictures of them.

I for one will not disrespect the decades of the work all of the past froggers have put in. They worked their asses off to get us here. We owe it to them to respect their wishes and carry on with their work.

 Sorry, I don't normally comment on this sort of thing because it kind of gets under my skin.


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## Encyclia (Aug 23, 2013)

TheRoadToSwole said:


> Those are beautiful hybrids! Am I the only one that finds it refreshing to see an open minded opinion about hybrids and mixing species? I'm all for preserving bloodlines, maintaining pure genes and keeping the frogs free of aggression, but I see NO reason to approach hybridization for personal stock with such a negative and narrow minded view. With my whopping month of second hand experience that i have gathered from researching and lurking dart frog forums, I have a sneaky suspicion that mixing some species is going to be much less frowned upon as the hobby grows. (#sarcastic about my experience).


Here is what makes me very nervous about this situation. These frogs are probably out there somewhere. Maybe RedEyedTroyFrog is still in the hobby or maybe he isn't. He hasn't posted here in 9 months. Let's assume, for the sake of argument that he got out of the hobby. He had to have sold his collection, if he got out of the hobby. Did he euthanize those frogs? I probably wouldn't have had the heart to do that. So, maybe he includes them along with the rest of his collection for free. Let's say he is completely above board about what they are and makes every effort to convey that information to the buyer of his collection. Now, let's assume that the buyer wants to sell a few of the frogs that he bought in the collection to make room for more. Let's say he throws those hybrids in with the sale (because if I have to make room for more frogs, some hybrids would be the first thing I would liquidate). The new owner of the hybrids tires of the hobby and quickly gets rid of the hybrids BUT he doesn't pass on the information about them to the next owner. Boom, whoever scoops up the hybrids this time makes some assumptions about what they are and breeds them with whatever morph he thinks they look like, breeds them with that morph, and then tries to sell the offspring as that morph. At this point, the genetics of all of the offspring of that morph are completely compromised. They aren't that morph anymore. They are something completely different. THAT is the scenario that worries me.

I don't see a way that you can be "all for preserving bloodlines, maintaining pure genes" and still be pro-hybrid, but that's your call. This is the reason that I only buy from people that have an established name in the hobby and have detailed line information. I think that if we embraced hybrids in this hobby, there would be two classes of frogs out there and one class (hybrids) would eventually absorb the other class (non-hybrids). This is because any frogs that had any hint of variability to them (as opposed to just the standard for the morph) would be lumped in with the hybrids, fairly or not. Eventually, this ambiguity would push people like me toward sources that I was more and more sure were hybrid free. The ultimate result of this would be an added demand for wild caught frogs because what is more certain to be non-hybrid than wild caught frogs? 

Lots of assumptions in there, I will freely admit, but I think the law of averages says it will happen eventually (probably has happened) and it's only this hobby's anti-hybrid stand that keeps it from happening a lot more often. I might be totally off base in my thinking and feel free to correct me if I am wrong.

That's just my $0.02,

Mark


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## carola1155 (Sep 10, 2007)

TheRoadToSwole said:


> I'm all for preserving bloodlines, maintaining pure genes and keeping the frogs free of aggression, but I see NO reason to approach hybridization for personal stock with such a negative and narrow minded view.


This is a very contradictory statement. 

The longer you watch this hobby and the more you see once-common frogs disappear... the more you begin to understand that maintaining lines is incredibly important. The hobby is smaller than you think, and the huge influx of new (legitimate) morphs is only going to make things more difficult to manage. People are free to do what they want, obviously, but devoting tank space to hybrids instead of legitimate morphs hurts the hobby more than you'd think.


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## TheRoadToSwole (Jun 19, 2017)

port_plz said:


> There's no reason to. We have such a vast array of beautiful frogs available to choose from already.
> 
> Why risk it? Frogs are one of the fastest disappearing species on the planet. Who knows, 10 years from now you may only get to see dart frogs in captivity. This hobby has managed to keep these animals very close to what you would see in nature, which is incredibly rare once humans get involved in breeding anything, be it plants, livestock, dogs, fish - everything usually goes out the window... We obviously won't be able to release our frogs to repopulate if they do go extinct in the wild but the least we can do is preserve the species so our grandkids don't just get to look at pictures of them.
> 
> ...





Encyclia said:


> Here is what makes me very nervous about this situation. These frogs are probably out there somewhere. Maybe RedEyedTroyFrog is still in the hobby or maybe he isn't. He hasn't posted here in 9 months. Let's assume, for the sake of argument that he got out of the hobby. He had to have sold his collection, if he got out of the hobby. Did he euthanize those frogs? I probably wouldn't have had the heart to do that. So, maybe he includes them along with the rest of his collection for free. Let's say he is completely above board about what they are and makes every effort to convey that information to the buyer of his collection. Now, let's assume that the buyer wants to sell a few of the frogs that he bought in the collection to make room for more. Let's say he throws those hybrids in with the sale (because if I have to make room for more frogs, some hybrids would be the first thing I would liquidate). The new owner of the hybrids tires of the hobby and quickly gets rid of the hybrids BUT he doesn't pass on the information about them to the next owner. Boom, whoever scoops up the hybrids this time makes some assumptions about what they are and breeds them with whatever morph he thinks they look like, breeds them with that morph, and then tries to sell the offspring as that morph. At this point, the genetics of all of the offspring of that morph are completely compromised. They aren't that morph anymore. They are something completely different. THAT is the scenario that worries me.
> 
> I don't see a way that you can be "all for preserving bloodlines, maintaining pure genes" and still be pro-hybrid, but that's your call. This is the reason that I only buy from people that have an established name in the hobby and have detailed line information. I think that if we embraced hybrids in this hobby, there would be two classes of frogs out there and one class (hybrids) would eventually absorb the other class (non-hybrids). This is because any frogs that had any hint of variability to them (as opposed to just the standard for the morph) would be lumped in with the hybrids, fairly or not. Eventually, this ambiguity would push people like me toward sources that I was more and more sure were hybrid free. The ultimate result of this would be an added demand for wild caught frogs because what is more certain to be non-hybrid than wild caught frogs?
> 
> ...





carola1155 said:


> This is a very contradictory statement.
> 
> The longer you watch this hobby and the more you see once-common frogs disappear... the more you begin to understand that maintaining lines is incredibly important. The hobby is smaller than you think, and the huge influx of new (legitimate) morphs is only going to make things more difficult to manage. People are free to do what they want, obviously, but devoting tank space to hybrids instead of legitimate morphs hurts the hobby more than you'd think.


I guess I could have been a little more clear with what i was trying to say. The point i'm trying to convey is that it's nice to see people maintaining an open mind. You do raise a good point, however, regarding selling off hybrids. I was more so talking about if someone chooses to keep these for their own collection. That is assuming everyone who crossbreeds will be maintaining their frogs for life, which I do realize is highly unlikely. 

Regarding my statement about valuing preserving blood lines... I would have to disagree that it is contradictory. Its important to keep the bloodlines pure and available, but what people chose to do with their animals is their choice as long as they do it responsibly and keep the frogs for themselves. For example, I value my pure bred Labrador very much and take pride that he is from a reputable breeder and that this option is available, but just last night my fiancee and I picked up a Bichon X american eskimo puppy because it was unbelievably cute and i preferred the mix of the 2 breeds over each on their own. Same goes with cichlids which i have quite the collection of. I have a pair Caquetaia Umbrifera "Rio mag" which were wild caught in the Rio Magdalena of Columbia. These fish are highly sought after in the hobby and have pure blood lines available. There are also Flower horns, which are a crossbreed of 2 cichlids, which are some of the MOST prized fish in the hobby with BY FAR the most expensive price tags attached for top specimens. Even though I would never pay for or keep a flower horn myself, doesn't mean that i don't admire the species or "breed", nor would I discourage others from producing and keeping flower horn cichlids. 

Please take everything I say with a grain of salt as i am EXTREMELY new to this hobby. I just love stirring up some critical thinking and debate about EVERYTHING lol!!!


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## toostrange (Sep 19, 2013)

carola1155 said:


> This is a very contradictory statement.
> 
> The longer you watch this hobby and the more you see once-common frogs disappear... the more you begin to understand that maintaining lines is incredibly important. The hobby is smaller than you think, and the huge influx of new (legitimate) morphs is only going to make things more difficult to manage. People are free to do what they want, obviously, but devoting tank space to hybrids instead of legitimate morphs hurts the hobby more than you'd think.


This more than anything!


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## TheRoadToSwole (Jun 19, 2017)

toostrange said:


> This more than anything!


I guess this where my noobieness succeeds me. I haven't been around long enough to quite get it yet. I'm sure i'll understand in time. And just putting this out there, I have zero intentions of ever mixing species. This really isn't my style. I've never been a fan of a "community" setting in keeping any creature. I'd much rather have a single specimen, pair or SMALL group of the same species of animal in one environment. I have a 220 gallon aquarium dedicated to 2 fish in my house! LOL!


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## spikeizzy77 (Nov 8, 2016)

Im not for crossbreeding, but these frogs are beautiful.


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## mark c (Jun 17, 2010)

How would YOU know? Those pictures no longer show and they were probably taken down long ago.


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## Timbow (Aug 17, 2016)

mark c said:


> How would YOU know? Those pictures no longer show and they were probably taken down long ago.




Haha. Looks like he gave up on getting access to the marketplace and posted his tadpoles for sale in a species specific forum. Moderators please note. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Timbow said:


> Haha. Looks like he gave up on getting access to the marketplace and posted his tadpoles for sale in a species specific forum. Moderators please note.


Instead of making a comment in an unrelated thread, click on the report post button in the actual post. That will get the attention of the moderators much much faster. 

some comments 

Ed


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