# Intermedius Lines



## Mywebbedtoes (Jul 2, 2007)

I was curious to know what others on hear know about the vaious "lines" of Intermedius in the hobby. I hear different information getting thrown around, such as there are six known lines. I also know that some people refer to "lines" like Frye or Nabors, but I am curious as to where these come from.

As far as I can tell there are:

Tarlton and Linbo.
Nabors I was told are from Tarlton line (Patrick told me this).
Frye, where are yours from?
I also hear talk of Phil Tan's, anyone know where these came from?
What are these six lines?

There is much line breeding with these guys too, which does not help. As it was explained to me, "so one man's Tartlon line may look different then anothers".

TWI has a management plan in the works for Imi's, but from what I hear it is very hard to track down where the Imitator came from. I would like to add two or three to deversify my collection, but I would like more data. Any thoughts?


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## markbudde (Jan 4, 2008)

I would think the imitator TMP group would have this info, or at least some insight.

There was a post once in the classifieds, which was in my PMs before the switch over, and i think it said:

Tarlton got the from Gary Putnam, who got them from Todd Kelley, who got them from John Uhern, who likely got them from Germany.

Phil Tan calls his "Tarlton Line". Frye's are apparently Nabors, which are Tarlton (but Rich can speak up to confirm or deny this). That leaves Tor's line. It wouldn't be shocking if these were also the same line, but you can just shoot him an email.

Also, these threads may be helpful.
http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/general-discussion/30284-imitator-types-blood-lines.html
Yahoo! Groups

-mark


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## Mywebbedtoes (Jul 2, 2007)

Thanks Mark. I forgot about that thread..which I participated in. Bad memory eh? Thanks again.


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## Mywebbedtoes (Jul 2, 2007)

So it goes...

Uhern from Germany
Kelly from Uhern
Putnam from Kelly
Tarlton from Putnam
Nabors from Tarlton
Frye from Nabors?

I am still curious about Phil Tan's. But maybe I missed something.


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## markbudde (Jan 4, 2008)

Phil Tan told me that his are Tarlton Line. I don't know if he got them directly from Tarlton, but they are definitely the same line.


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## markbudde (Jan 4, 2008)

Now if the TMP group would just validate this info, I would love to get some distantly related intermedius to mix in with mine for genetic diversity.


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## Mywebbedtoes (Jul 2, 2007)

Yeah me too. I don't think the TMP is done yet. But I want to do the same thing as you.


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## Rich Frye (Nov 25, 2007)

Mine actually came from Steve Tarlton, who is unfortunately out of the hobby. A real nice guy. My standard lamasi also came from Steve.
It is my belief that all the known "lines" in our U.S. hobby are the same. I belive this to be true about standard lamasi also. Not at all hard facts , but an educated guess.

Rich


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## Mywebbedtoes (Jul 2, 2007)

That is what it seems. So it would be the same for the Tor's? They would probably be traced back to the same lines? Are all your frogs from Tarlton personally? I noticed you seem to have some nice variations in your, from orange and spotted, to blue legs, to the striped paterns I so covet.

I wonder if we will see some frogs brought in through Understory?


Uhern from Germany
Kelly from Uhern
Putnam from Kelly
Tarlton from Putnam
Nabors from Tarlton
Frye from *Tarlton*


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## Rich Frye (Nov 25, 2007)

Mywebbedtoes said:


> That is what it seems. So it would be the same for the Tor's? They would probably be traced back to the same lines? Are all your frogs from Tarlton personally? I noticed you seem to have some nice variations in your, from orange and spotted, to blue legs, to the striped paterns I so covet.
> 
> I wonder if we will see some frogs brought in through Understory?
> 
> ...


All of mine are from Steve personally. Intermedius throw all kinds of variants. I am guessing , but I assume that because i started with a fairly large number of intermedius I got/get more variation than someone who started with one pair or so.
I have to assume that Tor's are from the same European "line".

Rich


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## Mywebbedtoes (Jul 2, 2007)

That's what I figured. That is what I am trying to get out of mine, I want to add to the deversity this group of frogs naturally produces. Thanks for the input Rich.


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## ggazonas (May 11, 2008)

I recently purchased a female intermedius and the line was Tarlton & Villegas


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## skylsdale (Sep 16, 2007)

I'm a bit confused by what people are calling "lines" in this conversation. By my guess, the only name that should be attributed to any line would be Uhern or Kelly...anything after that is simply a succession in possession of frogs from that line. However, if somebody acquired frogs at the same time Todd did (or from an outside source)...then we would have another possible line. As it seems, we just have the same frog being passed along to different people, not the creation of seperate lines and/or unrelated frogs.


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## Mywebbedtoes (Jul 2, 2007)

Agreed. That is in part why I was asking these questions and I put "lines" in quotations. Basically we have this:

Uhern from Germany
Kelly from Uhern
Putnam from Kelly
Tarlton from Putnam
Nabors from Tarlton
Frye from Tarlton 

So we should not have a Frye or even a Tarlton "line", they are all from Uhern. The only one I have still not heard too much on is Tor. It is helpful to know where our frogs came from though regardless, Frye, Tarlton, Nabors, Kelly. I would rather get a pair from someone who got theirs higher up in the chain of comand as opposed to lower...siblings of siblings of siblings. As long as we know the chain of command it is not a problem.


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## skylsdale (Sep 16, 2007)

So if we were to create a key, I think it would currently look like this:


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## Mywebbedtoes (Jul 2, 2007)

Exactly. I was wanting to do same thing like that but did not know how. I wonder if anyone one has contact with Tor to ask him? I also wonder how long these bounced around Germany before coming here.


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## markbudde (Jan 4, 2008)

i contacted tor yesterday and have been conversing with him. There will have to be some slight modifications made to the tree.


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## Mywebbedtoes (Jul 2, 2007)

Very cool Mark! Keep us up to date.


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## edward (Apr 20, 2008)

I got my pairs from Tor Linbo and if I remember correctly I think he
told me that his came directly from Europe. My memory is not the 
greatest so I could be wrong.


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## markbudde (Jan 4, 2008)

An update... I haven't finished sorting everything out yet, still trying to get a hold of some people, but...

It is LIKELY that Tor's intermedius are a separate population than the rest of the intermedius. He imported these as F1s from a Dutch frogger. They have bluer legs with smaller black spots and "a 'crown' of 3 usually fused dots... one over each eye and a center behind", which can be seen at his website.

I'll update again when I get more info. Tor wrote up a nice summary, but I want to make sure the info on Todd Kelley's line is complete before I post it.
-mark


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## skylsdale (Sep 16, 2007)

I'll rework and post a new key once you get all the info together, Mark.


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## sports_doc (Nov 15, 2004)

Every should realize that "lines" are artificial, yes?. We 'created' them...b/c we love to label things with our names whenever we can.... Scientists do it, doctors do it, and frog importers do it...[and those Scientist Doctors who import frogs,,,eeek, they are the worst offenders ;-) ]

I've been told by a reputable source, intermedius are 'just' imitator from Huallaga Canyon, Peru....regardless of their color patterns, ect. The bandeds are just a South Bank form, mimicking the sumersii.

the 'old' intermedius are likely a mix of populations, I've been told...from the days of smuggling in the 90's into Chazuta.

feel free to mix'em back up...in your tanks.

S


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## psychemjr (Jan 6, 2008)

Well now I have a free tank because if what you guys are saying. Rich Frye line and Phil Tan Line are the same....Right?
OK I need another Thumbnail...


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## sports_doc (Nov 15, 2004)

<<<< See, look how nice that worked out for you....


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## Mywebbedtoes (Jul 2, 2007)

I am glad this is getting worked out a bit more. I will be getting some Tor offspring in a few weeks, and as indicated by Mark these breed consistently blue legs, unlike some of the others where it's hit and miss.

As regards to what Shawn said, I have a few suggestions. We do tend to label and group things. Many are impressed by the variability in Bastis, and until yesterday I did not know that Rio Branco seem to be the same way. But have you seen the diversity in imitator? It seems huge in the wild. If you are not a TWI member you should join. There is an outstanding article in the summer Leaf Litter Magazine regarding Tarapoto written by Tracy Hicks. In it he observes that they witnessed the classic orange and green living and mixing in bromeliads with the yellow-green with blue legs.

In addition to that, check out Jason Brown's 2005 Peru gallery under animals. As you scroll through notice what is listed as an imitator. Wonderful variations. Now, these could be from different areas, I do not know. But the point is, this species is much more varied than what we typically see. I hope we learn much much more about these wonderful frogs.


Photo gallery - Dendrobates.org

EDIT-

To be more specific, and to speak to what Shawn said


> I've been told by a reputable source, intermedius are 'just' imitator from Huallaga Canyon, Peru....regardless of their color patterns, ect.


, look at the below link.

http://dendrobates.org/imitator.html There is a section with frogs all from Huallaga. So this gives us an idea of the ranges in pattern and color. We certainly don't see this in the hobby now, a lot of diversity yes, but not this much.



> Also present are the imitator sometimes referred to as 'intermedius', which simply denotes that they are blotched rather than spotted or striped


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## melissa68 (Feb 16, 2004)

Actually, there should be some additional information in there. We have had some of the Intermedius traced to us as well. I just usually tell people they are 1 of 2 things. 

We have the Tarlton line & a combination of Tarlton & Kelly. Since they are all the same, shouldn't all these frogs be referred to as John Urern's line instead of who they purchased the frogs from?

We have been selling them for 5 + years, and some people do reference them as Quality Captive lines although I try to correct them and provide them with the information as Tarlton or Tarlton & Kelly.

I think this confuses a lot of people and the line should be referenced as the oldest tracable 'name' and not 5-6 lines (names of breeders) forward. All we are doing is promoting line breeding. 

Anyone care to share their thoughts?

For what it is worth we have probably sold 100 - 200 of these through the years... Although it could be more or less.


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## Mywebbedtoes (Jul 2, 2007)

Agreeded. We should call them based on earliest known, or in this case Uhern. It is important to know the chain of command. Someone might prefer to get frogs from a vendor who got theirs from Kelly, as opposed to someone who got them from the guy who got them from the guy who got them from Kelly. But we should stop making up fake lines. A Kelly and an Tarlton line is confusing if they are infact the same. Tor sounds like the exception, but there should be more on that shortly.


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## melissa68 (Feb 16, 2004)

Well, at the time I didn't realize they were the same direct line. There was 0 difference (they were so similar, I couldn't tell them apart) in appearance and I combined them. I always try to be honest and let people know that these were the origins of the frogs. 

I have long suspected they were derived from the same line. Also, at the time the frogs were combined, diversity was valued more in the hobby than line breeding. Goals were different then vs now. In my opinion, we should be trying to get our blood lines as diverse as possible as long as we know the lines are the same. 




Mywebbedtoes said:


> Agreeded. We should call them based on earliest known, or in this case Uhern. It is important to know the chain of command. Someone might prefer to get frogs from a vendor who got theirs from Kelly, as opposed to someone who got them from the guy who got them from the guy who got them from Kelly. But we should stop making up fake lines. A Kelly and an Tarlton line is confusing if they are infact the same. Tor sounds like the exception, but there should be more on that shortly.


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## dwdragon (Aug 14, 2008)

I'm actually very interested in this as well. I don't have darts yet and while I don't think that hybridizing / mixing localities should be done I also don't like how much line breeding I have seen.

I understand that unfortunately it seems that a large majority of the frogs in the hobby started from a very small sample of frogs or a small minority of frogs that survived out of a much larger group that perished in the beginning of the hobby.

It would be really nice to get clarification on many of the Dendrobates as to which ones should be bred together and which ones need new blood in their breeding to freshen up the gene pool.


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## melissa68 (Feb 16, 2004)

Many are working on this issue and some of the people who had the original 'few' species are still in the hobby. Myself and other breeders have some wild caught stock in our collections and value them highly as well as F1 & F2 generations from other vendors. 

It is tough, but luckily hybridization has been strongly discouraged so even though there are some out there, they have not been used by respectable breeders in their stock. 

Hybridization is a totally different topic here - but my comment about it is hopefully pertinent to this conversation.

Having the ability to trace frogs back is still possible. The lack of widespread hybridization has eliminated the mysterious appearance of a new line with totally different characteristics. If this had not been discouraged so strongly, our ability to trace linage could have been severely compromised.





dwdragon said:


> I'm actually very interested in this as well. I don't have darts yet and while I don't think that hybridizing / mixing localities should be done I also don't like how much line breeding I have seen.
> 
> I understand that unfortunately it seems that a large majority of the frogs in the hobby started from a very small sample of frogs or a small minority of frogs that survived out of a much larger group that perished in the beginning of the hobby.
> 
> It would be really nice to get clarification on many of the Dendrobates as to which ones should be bred together and which ones need new blood in their breeding to freshen up the gene pool.


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## sports_doc (Nov 15, 2004)

Mywebbedtoes said:


> I am glad this is getting worked out a bit more. I will be getting some Tor offspring in a few weeks, and as indicated by Mark these breed consistently blue legs, unlike some of the others where it's hit and miss.


just as long as you understand the aint 'different'

just a sample from a small importation [assumption that a large variety wasnt brought in, but a valid assumption 99% of the time. Things are smuggled to Europe in waves, either separated by colors or lumped in smugglers buckets, bred, sent off to the USA, we 'label' them this line or that. Continue to 'line breed' the traits - ie: blue legs, stripes, etc.]. 

This isnt site specific stuff here...just import date 'line' labeling.


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## melissa68 (Feb 16, 2004)

Thanks for adding that, because it is important. 

Usually there are a small number that are brought in by a small number of froggers. 

This is one of the reasons the names of frogs here are sometimes different than Europe.



sports_doc said:


> just as long as you understand the aint 'different'
> 
> just a sample from a small importation [assumption that a large variety wasnt brought in, but a valid assumption 99% of the time. Things are smuggled to Europe in waves, either separated by colors or lumped in smugglers buckets, bred, sent off to the USA, we 'label' them this line or that. Continue to 'line breed' the traits - ie: blue legs, stripes, etc.].
> 
> This isnt site specific stuff here...just import date 'line' labeling.


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## Mywebbedtoes (Jul 2, 2007)

dwdragon said:


> I'm actually very interested in this as well. I don't have darts yet and while I don't think that hybridizing / mixing localities should be done I also don't like how much line breeding I have seen.


Here is where I shamelessly plug TWI and the ASN program. I have read several of your posts on DB, and you seem to be genuine and very interested in doing things right. I wish I could go back in time to when I first started. I bought some cobalts from who knows what source, I got some Brazilian Yellow heads from who knows what sources (although I do not regret these, they are sweet!), I got some Azureus from who knows what sources. Those three frogs I will never trace back to anything of benefit. They are just frogs. But, later, as I thought more about my goals as a frogger, I realized I wanted to add quality to my collection. Something that if it bred would be of benefit. So I have some Intermedius, and I know where they came from, more importantly, I know how I am going to add to my collection to diversify to offspring and have some decent frogs to offer others. I also got some F1 Suriname Cobalts, again, something quality to offer. My advice to you, and every new frogger is to think about your goals. I strongly suggest working with TWI/ASN to help establish quality frogs in the hobby. There are several species where you could get a nice small collection to help diversify the frog community. I wish I had thought about this more early on, I would have purchased my frogs differently, and from different sources.


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## Mywebbedtoes (Jul 2, 2007)

sports_doc said:


> just as long as you understand the aint 'different'


Not 100% sure I follow here. Do you mean that as long as I understand Tor's are not different than Uhern? If that is the case, yes. They are just traits from amongst common populations in Huallaga. Just because one throws blu legs doesn't mean they are a different population. Is that what you ment Shawn? That basically when they came in, someone seperated out ones that looked similar and paired those up as a "line"?

EDIT. My intent with the Tor frogs is to mix them up with my Uhern, aka Tarlton.

Also, as it relates to the banded, which are a seperate population, does anyone know the chain of command on these? I know not many are working with them. Did they come via Europe too?


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## skylsdale (Sep 16, 2007)

Regarding the banded (south Huallaga bank) form...I could be wrong, but I think the vast majority in the hobby have come from Todd Kelley. Unless Shawn (or anyone else) has more info, I can get back to you on this.


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## melissa68 (Feb 16, 2004)

I don't know about Shawn's, but mine throw blue legs too. I have also gotten varying degrees of orange, yellow and stripes, unstriped.

The only person who can truely answer your question is Tor or others involved in that import. If they came in together and were separated because of colors that very well could be the case.


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## Mywebbedtoes (Jul 2, 2007)

Well it sounds like Mark is having conversations with Tor, so it will be neat to see what he comes back with. This is great info so far though.

Shawn works with multiple groups of animals. He has abeautiful trio of intermedius that have blue legs (I am not sure if all three do). Their offspring throw blue legs I think about 20% of the time if I remember correctly. But even the ones that do not have nice leg coloring. These are from Shawn's trio.



















Striped is my biggest interest, they look amazing.


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## jubjub47 (Sep 9, 2008)

This sounds very similar to my thread a few weeks back about blue/gray leg vents. Its good to know that these frogs should be mixed together and it will be very interesting to see what happens in a few years with these guys. I'm sure that not everyone will mix, but those that begin to should start seeing some very interesting variations. I will be looking for some of these guys soon and will definitely be getting them from a variety of "lines"


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## sports_doc (Nov 15, 2004)

Mywebbedtoes said:


> Not 100% sure I follow here. Do you mean that as long as I understand Tor's are not different than Uhern? If that is the case, yes. They are just traits from amongst common populations in Huallaga. Just because one throws blu legs doesn't mean they are a different population. Is that what you ment Shawn? That basically when they came in, someone separated out ones that looked similar and paired those up as a "line"?
> 
> EDIT. My intent with the Tor frogs is to mix them up with my Uhern, aka Tarlton.
> 
> Also, as it relates to the banded, which are a separate population, does anyone know the chain of command on these? I know not many are working with them. Did they come via Europe too?


Correct.

My 'banded intermedius' aka banded imitator from south hualluga canyon, came from Phil Tan. Who Phil got them from, or imported with, I dont know. 

US lines of 'Intermedius' can all be mixed [not to include the banded form as previous discussed] . The designated 'lines' in the US are artificial and not indicative of wild populations.


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## Mywebbedtoes (Jul 2, 2007)

sports_doc said:


> US lines of 'Intermedius' can all be mixed. The designated 'lines' in the US are artificial and not indicative of wild populations.


I thought the one exception was the banded though, that these were generally felt to be a unique population, as thay hail from south Hualluga? There are imitator intermedius that look banded, but have the same belly patterns as any other intermedius. But a true banded has an entierly different belly pattern. I am trying to think where I saw this. I was just looking at it on a website too!


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## sports_doc (Nov 15, 2004)

<<< per Mark Pepper [who I dont think will mind my posting our conversation for the sake of clarity and accuracy]

"The banded intermedious are again imitator, but you find them south bank of the hualluga canyon and reaching towards the cordillera azul. In this region you find only summersi, no ventris or variabilis, and all the imitators are convincing summersi mimics, but again they are imitator"

from this information, I do take it to believe the banded imitator are isolated enough to warrant being bred as a separate population in the hobby. 

Until ....I get a banded imitator to throw another pattern offspring..., then that will confuse me even more.

Shawn


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## Mywebbedtoes (Jul 2, 2007)

Perfect explination! I would agree with your assesment until we have further information sayng otherwise, I think speration is wise.

As a general statement to all, I encourage all of us as a hobby to do our best to represent natural variation in our collections. If at all possible I hope we can all try to avoid line breeding. As a good example, check out this thread.

http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/general-discussion/23954-rio-branco-group-offspring.html

I never cared much for Rio Brancos, but I also never knew they had this diversity! But imagine what a shame it would be if we started line breeding these, like we have seen in Bastis and even Intermedius. So again, I hope we can all do our best to keep the diversity going. End personal rant.


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## melissa68 (Feb 16, 2004)

Jon Werner has a 'line' attributed to him doesn't he? 

Can't remember with certainty - so if anyone can chime in that would be great. Anyone know if his is different?


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## EricM (Feb 15, 2004)

I haven't had the time to read through this whole post, mostly because my allergies are killing me now; but one thing to add to this is that John Uhern used to get frogs from Ruud in Europe, I think Germany. Those are the original frogs that Todd Kelley got and are in fact the same as Tarlton, etc.

Tor's line came into the country by Jared Wolfe, who used to import from Canada a long time ago, and as stated they are from the Netherlands. Jared's shipments included frogs from various sources in Europe, not just one country. 

So in one respect all intermedius are imitator, but certain populations will have dominant traits that exist to give them a unique appearance. Certainly this changes over time but with a small captive population of frogs here in the US it could take a long time depending on the genes. I'm sure Brent could nerd this up with all the proper genetics jargon, but hopefully you get my point.

I keep the following and for the most part I can tell which line the young frogs belong to 8 out of 10 times.

Imitator- old usa nominant 
Imitator- Todd Kelley 
Imitator- Alex Sens 
Imitator- Phil Tan line from Germany
Imitator-Cainarachi Valley Inibico 
Intermedius-Uhern/Kelley/Tarlton
Intermedius-Tor Linbo
Intermedius-banded 
Intermedius-Huallaga Valley

The last two groups were collected by a friend of mine, so I am absolutely certain they are not mixed. My bandeds throw some individuals with a six pack looking back, basically 3 broken bands down the middle by the yellow body color. I haven't had the CVI very long but they look more like the old nominant line than any of the others.

Just more to stir the pot
Eric


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## Mywebbedtoes (Jul 2, 2007)

Eric, you reference Intermedius from Huallaga. Are not all Intermedius from Huallaga? Or is it that you know you can trace back those specific animals you have to Huallaga? I guess my point is, are these from a different source than the animals that came in throuh Uhern and Tor?


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## markpulawski (Nov 19, 2004)

Yes Eric's Hualluga Valley are a site specific morph not to be mixed with other lines. Much like the banded's there is some geographic seperation, the name just gives them some distinction to offer some traceability. Perhaps another name for these specific animals may become more appropriate but since they are Eric's Hualluga Valley they are.


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## sports_doc (Nov 15, 2004)

Mark, Eric and others..

It is my understanding that the imitator from Huallaga Canyon are what we call 'intermedius'. Regardless of whether they are banded, boxed, stripped, spotted etc.

If the point is to keep the 'wild type' alive in our collections, then separating 'intermedius' by who imported them in such and such year, is not serving that purpose.

'Intermedius' forms of imitator are all from Huallaga. The banded form having a specific southern locale, but all the rest of the standard 'intermedius' phenotypes we know and love can be intermixed as Huallaga imitator.

Of other imitator locales:
Cainarachi valley are separate [brought into the US from UE and INIBICO]

Tarapoto are separate [older imports and newer out of UE/INIBICO, but they are still all Tarapoto imitator, unless of course you are paranoid the old lines arent pure...]

'yurimaguensis' dont really exist. They are just a lowland form of imitator, and apparently the most common imitator in nature, despite being relatively 'new' here. Highly variable in phenotype. 

Veradero are separate.

bajo huallaga are separate [see UE webpages]

I've honestly just had this conversation with Mark Pepper and I think I have it straight...but truthfully have never fully grasped it until lately.

Correct me if I'm wrong...

Sincerely,

Shawn


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## Jason (Oct 14, 2004)

This is all very interesting information. Keep it coming. This has been a great read.


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## markbudde (Jan 4, 2008)

Well, I haven't been able to confirm everything about the kelley line intermedius, but I'll go ahead and post what Tor had to say...

The following is Tor Linbo's words:
--------------------------------------
The history of my intermedius

Early in 1998 Todd K., Steve W. and I got F1 intermedius from a Scandinavian frogger through a couple middlemen. It was common practice for European froggers to bring in new frogs to Europe, breed them to get second or third breeding groups going, and then sell the extras to the US hobby. This let the European froggers make some money but not damage their local trade or sales market. These froggers would sell through layers of middle men and so it was hard to nail down exactly where frogs came from... but the frog community is small enough and with the growing use of the web it was possible now to make an educated guess that the frogs we got originated with B. Olsson. To that end lets call them "orange-kors imitator-intermedius" or "Cross intermedius", and this is infact was what they were called when we got them. But there still is a question about L. Nitare connection if any.

These frogs were transported through many countries and thousands of miles and so by the time we got them they were not in great shape. Steve W. group didn't make it. Todd and my groups did OK and started breeding. A few years later Todd was changing around his collection and I got all of his Cross intermedius. I still have a group of these F1s.

The tadpoles have a nearly uniform 3 spot "crown" I call a "mickey mouse"... this can be seen on my site

Froglet.us D. intermedius Stage42

The "Cross Intermedius" are not the "Red imitator" that J. Uhern brought in. Todd K. had (still has) those and they are a different frogs... likely a whole different population/ race/ morph if not a different species. It was beleived that J. Uhern imported from B. Pieper. The Germans were/ are? calling intermedius, "Red Imitator" and so that looks like a second level of evidence.

The "Cross Intermedius" are not the "Tarapoto imitator" that have and have put into the US hobby.

I've seen two other intermedius/ red imitator in the US hobby that are not any of the above "races."... there may be more and likely there have also be hybrids produced.

There is another complexity, These frogs were very rare in the the European hobby for many years. When we got them in the US most European froggers had only seen them in photos. Small numbers slowly leaked into the European hobby and there were reports of "puppy mills" gathered up what they could, not caring about races, just trying to breed large numbers for pet trade and export.

On this...



Uhern from Germany
Kelly from Uhern
Putnam from Kelly
Tarlton from Putnam
Nabors from Tarlton

Gary Putnam had Red imitator in 9/8/98 from his frognet intro... I guess that works, I think Todd got the red imitator around 1997...


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## jubjub47 (Sep 9, 2008)

My head is spinning after reading that bit of info. It does sound like Tor's intermedius are of a different grouping then the others for sure. That being said, it is would still be possible for these frogs to be of the same locality. It sounds like the original tree posted still stands though, but I'm not sure about the two other "races" and possible hybrids he refers to.


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## dwdragon (Aug 14, 2008)

Ok.... now I'm really confused.

From what Tor said it sounds like there might be alot of hybrids of imitator just because of "2 unidentified morph / species" and Red Imitator? I hadn't heard the term Red Imitator until just now when I read that and I've been doing alot of reading lol.

Ugh ok my head hurts from all that when someone figures it all out let the rest of us know please!


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## markbudde (Jan 4, 2008)

i haven't been able to confirm yet, but i think red imitator was the original name for the kelly line intermedius via uhern, which have oranger legs than the Tor Linbo line. I THINK...


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## Mywebbedtoes (Jul 2, 2007)

Tor line definatly have blue legs, not the solifd orange we see in others. That being said, we still get blue legs from some of the Uhern frogs. On dendrobates.org, under imitator and then under intermedius, you can see the frogs from Huallaga and just how variable they are as Shawn pointed out.


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## markbudde (Jan 4, 2008)

OK... This has been confirmed...

Todd Kelley got his intermedius from Uhern (which were originally imported as "Red Imitator" from Germany). These have the oranger legs, but can be somewhat bluish as well.

As noted above, Tor's line is separate, from a Scandinavian and were originally called cross intermedus. 

Whether these came from separate populations or not will probably never be known, but they were not imported together. So the Tarlton, Frye, Tan, Nabors should all be called Kelley or Uhern or "Red imitator". Or maybe all intermedius should be called Huallaga Canyon intermedius. It is my understanding that "intermedius" was meant to denote that these frogs were intermediate between imitator and R. summersi (yellow fants). We now know that they are imitator, so perhaps Huallaga Canyon imitator makes more sense. Thoughts?
----------------------------------------
EDIT: I intended to write, we should refer intermedius as "Huallaga Canyon imitator" not "Huallaga Canyon intermedius". I just don't see the value in calling it imitator intermedius instead of just imitator.


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## jubjub47 (Sep 9, 2008)

I think that makes a bit of sense, but that would leave a bit of confusion for the Tor line. I guess if the Tor line was to go by "cross" and the others by "red imitator" or "Huallaga Canyon" would be a bit less confusing.


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## Mywebbedtoes (Jul 2, 2007)

> To say the Huallaga Canyon is utterly amazing is an understatement....Also present are the imitator sometimes referred to as *'intermedius', which simply denotes that they are blotched rather than spotted or striped*, although, certain frogs (i.e. second photo) do not seem to fall into either category.


 From dendrobates.org

I am in favor of calling them _Huallaga Canyon Imitator Intermedius_. However, I still think it would be of value for people to point out if theirs are Uhern/Kelly, or via Tor. But they are still Huallaga Canyon Imitator Intermedius.


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## markbudde (Jan 4, 2008)

I edited my previous post.


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## jubjub47 (Sep 9, 2008)

Mywebbedtoes said:


> From dendrobates.org
> 
> I am in favor of calling them _Huallaga Canyon Imitator Intermedius_. However, I still think it would be of value for people to point out if theirs are Uhern/Kelly, or via Tor. But they are still Huallaga Canyon Imitator Intermedius.


I think leaving out the Intermedius part and just going with Huallaga Canyon Imitator. Intermedius and Huallaga Canyon is kind of redundant in my opinion since Intermedius is used to refer only to the Huallaga Canyon imitator. Making a name change like this should only take a few people starting it to catch on.


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## edward (Apr 20, 2008)

I'm also confused! 'Mywebbedtoes' states that Tor's line have blue legs.
I received my frogs directly from Tor and none of them, nor any of the
offspring to date have blue legs. Their legs are black with pale yellow or
greenish lines, same as their underside except the throat area which is 
orange.


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## dwdragon (Aug 14, 2008)

Ok so what I got from all this is that Tor's line should not be mixed with Uhern/Kelly line. Right? Or did I miss something?

Tor also mentioned 2 other morphs possible species anyone know what he was talking about?


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## jubjub47 (Sep 9, 2008)

edward said:


> I'm also confused! 'Mywebbedtoes' states that Tor's line have blue legs.
> I received my frogs directly from Tor and none of them, nor any of the
> offspring to date have blue legs. Their legs are black with pale yellow or
> greenish lines, same as their underside except the throat area which is
> orange.


Tor's line is not necessarily a different population of frogs. They were just obtained from a different individual in Europe. As has been said by someone earlier in this thread, there is a lot of variation so what your seeing could be just that.


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## markpulawski (Nov 19, 2004)

I would still be reluctant to say all Intermedius other than the Banded's are the same, especially in the case like Eric's where the frogs are from a distinct area. Though other lines from the late 90's may be a bit muddied either in the collection process from the original suppliers or possibly in what was shipped from Europe subsequently, recent shipments that are locale specific (whether we know that locale or not) should be kept "clean" in my estimation.
We may later find that all of these are truely the same and can be mixed but I think there is also the distinct possibility that there are several different morphs of Intermedius, just like we have with Tinctorius. Many of the Imitator photos that have now shown up show such wild variability that it leads me to believe that some of these must be distinct color morphs.
I just wish I could go to Peru to find out...


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## EricM (Feb 15, 2004)

I for one am not going to throw all my imitator into one pot because they are all imitator. For many reasons, one is I am an old fart in this hobby, and all these lines/races/morphs whatever you want to call them; have been preserved for 20 years or so. Are we going to pool all the anthonyi, mainland pumilios, tincts, galacts, histrionicus, sylvaticus all together because they come from the same area. What about vents, pictus, femoralis, trivs, or other frogs that encompass larger ranges over multiple countries? Most of the people on this board haven't been in the dart frog hobby for even a decade yet, you didn't see all the frogs that used to come in, with no site data and you were lucky if the wholesalers or jobbers could even tell you where the shipment came from, plus in many cases there were frogs from multiple countries on one shipment, borders and CITES were not so strict or organized back then. There were tons of variation in just trivs from various importations, usually thrown in as filler on shipments. In the case of imitator we know they all come from Peru, but we don't know exactly where and what if any barriers separated the populations we still hold on to. We just don't know. What benefit does it hold to hodgepodge them? If you work with any of the lines you can still enjoy the variation of the species. Plus what do we do with the pumpkin orange ones that are on Dendrobates.org???? Just put em' in with the green imis, after plopping down your cash for "orange" ones, probably not.

One great reason to keep all the "old" lines clean is to NOT pollute the known lines we have from Understory and Inibico. This makes the Taxon Management Group's role more important to the frog community. We can manage the "unknown origin" lines of imitator for the hobby and focus on the Cainarachi Valley morph for ISIS and the higher level of genetic purity that is needed for conservation.

Just more fodder for this thread
Eric


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## dwdragon (Aug 14, 2008)

Eric that is a great statement and I completely agree with it even though I don't even have frogs yet.

One worry I've had is the level of interbreeding that may weaken genetics in the frogs that have unknown origins. It would be great if there were a way to dna test them against known locality frogs. This would of course mean that someone would have had to have kept the frogs line bred the entire time or it would need to be original frogs. Now, I don't have much knowledge in the medical aspect of frogs so I don't know if it's possible to get a dna test without killing the frog which would not be a suggested method.

I also know that dna testing is extremely expensive but would also imagine that if indeed the animals being bred in the hobby and by TWI/ASN members are intended to go for a conservation effort that this would be worth raising money for. Not for "everyone's" frogs but a select few to get some ideas if we have some new blood to mix in that is the same species and morph.

That seems to be the only way this is going to be resolved unless someone can contact the european / scandanavian hobbyist and see if they have more data on the intermedius history. From what Tor said it sounds like there were a few different species / morphs imported and then lumped together which may mean that the genes are already soiled and not what you would naturally find which in my mind is very sadening.


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## jubjub47 (Sep 9, 2008)

EricM said:


> I for one am not going to throw all my imitator into one pot because they are all imitator. For many reasons, one is I am an old fart in this hobby, and all these lines/races/morphs whatever you want to call them; have been preserved for 20 years or so. Are we going to pool all the anthonyi, mainland pumilios, tincts, galacts, histrionicus, sylvaticus all together because they come from the same area. What about vents, pictus, femoralis, trivs, or other frogs that encompass larger ranges over multiple countries? Most of the people on this board haven't been in the dart frog hobby for even a decade yet, you didn't see all the frogs that used to come in, with no site data and you were lucky if the wholesalers or jobbers could even tell you where the shipment came from, plus in many cases there were frogs from multiple countries on one shipment, borders and CITES were not so strict or organized back then. There were tons of variation in just trivs from various importations, usually thrown in as filler on shipments. In the case of imitator we know they all come from Peru, but we don't know exactly where and what if any barriers separated the populations we still hold on to. We just don't know. What benefit does it hold to hodgepodge them? If you work with any of the lines you can still enjoy the variation of the species. Plus what do we do with the pumpkin orange ones that are on Dendrobates.org???? Just put em' in with the green imis, after plopping down your cash for "orange" ones, probably not.
> 
> One great reason to keep all the "old" lines clean is to NOT pollute the known lines we have from Understory and Inibico. This makes the Taxon Management Group's role more important to the frog community. We can manage the "unknown origin" lines of imitator for the hobby and focus on the Cainarachi Valley morph for ISIS and the higher level of genetic purity that is needed for conservation.
> 
> ...


I agree with you on everything that you've said. Keep in mind though that the topic of this thread is about the intermedius. As has already been shown through the research with the original importers of these animals many of the frogs that are being labeled this line and that are all of the same line. I don't believe that anyone in this thread is recommending mixing all of the imitators together by any means. The goal of this thread I believe is to find out the origins of these intermedius and diversify the bloodlines if possible after learning the background. Many of the newer frogs do have locality data and it's important to keep those lines intact. What this thread has brought to light is that many have frogs of the Kelly line that they keep separate from the Putnam line(just two random names from the list) for no reason other than not knowing they are really the same line. It's important to breed through the biggest population possible in order to preserve the natural traits of the wild populations.


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## sports_doc (Nov 15, 2004)

EricM said:


> One great reason to keep all the "old" lines clean is to NOT pollute the known lines we have from Understory and Inibico. This makes the Taxon Management Group's role more important to the frog community. We can manage the "unknown origin" lines of imitator for the hobby and focus on the Cainarachi Valley morph for ISIS and the higher level of genetic purity that is needed for conservation.
> 
> Eric


Agreed. And for that reason alone I would personally prefer to continue to label my own 'line' frogs by the importers name. No other way to keep them out of the gene pool.

....But isnt it possible, for the sake of discussion, that we have been artificially separating SOME imitator intermedius as 'populations' just b/c they were imported by different folks, or from different EU locations from which they were smuggled too? Assuming they are actually different populations.

There are distinct populations, yes. And in some case we can distinguish them as such. 

In other cases we have labels put on limited #'s of founder frogs from import this/ import that. There is the potential the natural diversity was 'accidentally' selected out...by importing just the blue legged ones, then the orange ones. Etc. Or by starting with only a select few animals to begin with.

The other issue is the assumption that animals were kept pure and separate from collection, to packing, to smuggling, to breeding, to re-exportation to the US. Big assumption I would think. 

Either way the process isnt going to change unless we continue to support projects that preserve site data, and FR animals instead of poach.


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## Mywebbedtoes (Jul 2, 2007)

I still don't think we should drop the Intermedius out of the description and just call them Huallaga Canyon Intermedius for the below reason.



> To say the Huallaga Canyon is utterly amazing is an understatement. In a short stretch (~20 km), one can find nearly any imitator morph imaginable


I take this to mean you will also find non-intermedius Imitator in Huallaga and we would not want to give the impression that they can all be mixed.

As to my statement before that Tor's line all have blue legs, I do not know if they all do, so I retract that statement. Many do though 



EricM said:


> I for one am not going to throw all my imitator into one pot because they are all imitator. For many reasons, one is I am an old fart in this hobby, and all these lines/races/morphs whatever you want to call them; have been preserved for 20 years or so. Are we going to pool all the anthonyi, mainland pumilios, tincts, galacts, histrionicus, sylvaticus all together because they come from the same area...What benefit does it hold to hodgepodge them? If you work with any of the lines you can still enjoy the variation of the species.


Eric, can you clarify a bit. I am interested for the sake of this thread in only the Imitator Intermedius. Clearly we have different Imitator in general that should not be mixed, for instance a green imi with an Intermedius imi, or any of the others. But, can I take your statement above to mean, that if you acquired a few Imitator Intermedius, Uhern line, and a few Imitator Intermediu Tor line, that you would manage these seperatly? If this is the case I may need to change my thinking on management.

Dendrobates.org shows eleven (11) different patterns of Intermedius. I have frogs that look very close to #7 and #10. Many others have frogs that look just like #6 and some like #1 and #4 (stripes). Aside from the banded, most of the ones I have seen that are common in the hobby look like these five or a combination thereof. The other five look very different than what I have seen. Eric, I am not sure what you site specific Huallaga look like. I guess what we need to know is, are these variations seen in a group of animals, or are they unique like some say the banded are?

My goal was/is to diversify my group a bit. With Imitator Imis this seems hard to do, as genetically most come from the same parents. Especially if we should be handling the Tor animals separate from Uhern.


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## EricM (Feb 15, 2004)

I agree that we as a frog community may or may not have been keeping lines of frogs selectively just by what the founder frogs represented when they arrived here in the USA.

One of the things I tried to put into words earlier is just that, most of the frogs that use to come in to the country had little or no site data. For example some frogs came in as vents but they were actually standard lamasi, but at the time "lamasi" didn't exist, we didn't have much to go on back then, we knew they didn't look like vents but there wasn't any information on the frogs, and if there was it was not in English. No books, no internet, no email, I think we had VCRs by then, you get the point.

Minyobates opistomelas came in once in a fairly large amount but most died right off the bat, a few froggers got some of these but no one to my knowledge had any breeding success with them. This was an example of filler species, stuff to add to shipments that the exporter could charge money for but really wasn't the anchor species that made someone plop down money. Like with Suriname, people pay bucks for the snakes so the exporters add trivittatus, monkey frogs, various toads, etc to fill up the boxes and make some extra money added onto the emerald tree boas that people really want. 

It used to be that we got frogs from Europe that had already been the "hot" frog there and we were getting the seconds, or the types that weren't in demand, or the frogs that "crazy Americans" would pay a lot of money for, but the Europeans wouldn't or didn't need to. If frogs from Columbia show up every few months the opportunity to obtain some isn't as slim as it is here for example. I would bet we also got the "ugly" frogs of some morphs bred in Europe. Most of us who breed frogs and hold some back for back up breeders keep the ones that are most attractive or have interesting markings, the rest go up for sale or trade.

It all comes back to being responsible managers of every frog we have in the hobby period. If for nothing else than maintaining the purity known locales/lines. 

In regards to Intermedius, all the lines that originally came from the frogs John Uhern imported should be mixed because of the founder stock being from the same importer. But John brought in many shipments of frogs, so we don't know if all the Uhern line intermedius were in fact from the same founder frogs in Europe. Chances are they were if captive bred, but not likely if they were left overs of shipments coming in from Peru. We just don't know. Most of the shipments I saw there were cb frogs but there were some that came in as adults.

Tor's line should be kept separate as it came into the US as a different morph and through a different European country and different importer. My group produces almost all offspring with blue legs, I think I have one that doesn't have much blue but there is still a hint. They look very differant from the Uhern line and my Huallagas.

I got two groups of frogs from the Huallaga region, one is "normal or unbanded" intermedius and one is banded. I agree there is no one phenotype that should be called Huallaga and as Mark Pepper has testified you can see everything under the sun feet from each other as far as variations. Mine at least are were collected feet from each other, so they represent a piece of that intermedius continuance. In other words I dont' have a group of frogs that consist of individuals that may or may not have been miles away from each other when collected, and then thrown into a cup and sent to America. That is the only arguement for keeping them separate from other lines like Tors or Uhern. The banded group I keep was also collected feet from each other but not in the same area as my unbanded Huallagas. Here again is a known banded group from the wild, not a group that may or may not have been selectively cherry picked and sold as bandeds. Those are my arguements to keep them separate from the other lines. The frogs have a known source, date, and they did not change hands many times, which increases the chance for contaminants to be added, before they entered the hobby. 

I hope I have addressed those questions from you all. If not please let me know.

Thanks
Eric


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## sports_doc (Nov 15, 2004)

Your response does help clarify Eric. Thank you.

I'm assuming you have already registered your known locale animals with TWI/ASN? As you know, this would be important in order to track and potentially manage those animals in the future.

This following message comes from Mark Pepper of Understory Enterprises, posted upon his request. 

"This is an interesting thread and full of interesting stuff, and
confusion. Aside from maybe Jason Brown or Evan Twomey I will preface
what I am about to say and that is that I have seen more imitator in more
localities in the wild than anybody else currently working with
dendrobatids. I have spent so many days along the hualluaga that I have
long since lost count.

I dont know the history of all of the "intermedius" in the hobby, who
imported what from whom in Europe, and whose lines are most pure, from
specific localities etc. But I do know the origin of many of these
animals from the source, the Peruvian perspective.

Throughout the nineties and continuing into this decade the village of
Chazuta, being conveniently connected by road to Tarapoto, and thus the
the most easily accessible villiage in the Hualluga canyon has served as a
depot for frog smuggling. Middlemen who would sell to buyers overseas
would come to Chazuta to buy from campesino collectors. These campesino's would collect from all accessible points in the hualluga canyon, and even from the cainarachi valley. I have on a CD in Iquitos pictures of buckets of frogs from this smuggling station showing frogs from all through the hualluga as well as animals from the cainarachi valley as well. This was in late 2003, and at this time many frogs were loose in this campesinoes yard, so it is plausible the populations in the vicinity of Chazuta have been contaminated with escaped frogs. Due to the variation I have seen in Chazuta imitator it seems to me implausible that some contamination has not occurred.

From what I have seen of the "intermedious" in the hobby now, at least in
the US, the spectrum of variation can easily be observed within
populations near Chazuta. Because of the nature of how the majority of
the "intermedius" arrived in the hobby it can be safely assumed that they
are. or probably are mixes from imitator populations throughout the
hualluga canyon.

Within the geographic confines of the hualluga canyon you can see many
many populations of imitator which share common traits unique from
neighbouring populations, which I would argue to be kept separate when/if
they make it into the hobby. No population within the canyon that I have
seen can be easily confused with the what the hobby is familiar with as
the classic imitator, finely netter orange or green or yellow frogs which
are from the cordillera escallera reaching the from the eastern extreme of
the tarapoto valley until the hills level into the lowlands near pongo de
caynarachi. Along the Carretera Tarapoto Yurimaguas as you begin to
descend towards pongo de cainarachi you see the frogs transition from
netted animals to the linear animals that are called yurimaguensis in the
hobby. These are just simply imitator. Irregardless of where you enter
the lowlands in north eastern san martin or adjacent western loreto the
dominant phenotype will be striped animals, presumably ventrimaculatus
mimics. There is much variation in colour, width of striping etc etc but
generally the lowland populations, which are distributed most widely are
linearly patterned.

as has been covered already, the banded animals are restricted to the
hills of the south side of the rio hualluga in the canyon region. These
extend at least as far as Sauce. The full southward distribution of
imitator is unknown largely due to the lack of data from within the Parque
Nacional Cordillera Azul.

Intermedious, Yurimaguenis are imitator, just from different geographic
regions.

I don't know how best to manage the lineages in the hobby, nor is it my
main concern, I just want to give some oversight into the geography and
distribution of imitator as they are found in Peru.

Finally, if anybody wants to really understand this, come to Peru, Late
next year I will glady give an imitator world tour, just pay your expenses
and in a week I can show you a couple dozen populations of imitators from
all over san martin, and then this will all make sence. If I could change
one thing about the hobby it would be to get people to travel more. A
week in the jungle will change your whole perspective, understanding and
appreciation of these frogs.

I hope this helps some, [Sincerely, Mark]"


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## sports_doc (Nov 15, 2004)

*Care sheet*

I believe this thread contains important enough information not to be lost in time to the archives of DB...

so I did link to it from the imitator care sheet, in case it needs to be referenced in the future.

thank you


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## Mywebbedtoes (Jul 2, 2007)

Wow.

Eric, perfect! That is exactly what I wanted to know.

Sahwn, thank you for posting what Mark had to say. Very insightful indeed. I also thank you for adding this to the caresheet, I was hoping we could do something like that so it would not be lost.


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## dwdragon (Aug 14, 2008)

From what I've gotten from all this...

In a way it is wonderful and awful news from some types of perspective. It does seem as though management of the older lines without site data is not going to be possible from a conservation standpoint. Atleast the information has been collected now and is there.

However, the management of new lines would seem to take priority. I'm definately going to keep all this mind and maybe go over the thread again when I get ready to aquire PDF's as imitators, intermedius, variabilis, and vents are what I have been looking at (well Bastimentos too but they don't fit here).

I would just like to say thank you to everyone who contacted some of the original hobbyists as well as importers and did research. If I were to try to figure this out I wouldn't have the first clue where to start.


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## Mywebbedtoes (Jul 2, 2007)

DW, while I think this is true...


> It does seem as though management of the older lines without site data is not going to be possible from a conservation standpoint


, it would still be important for us to keep the Tor Lindo and John Uhern lines seperate. For some people, they have no idea where their frogs came from, if they are solid Uhern, or solid Tor Linbo, or a mix of both. But others do know for sure if they have Tor or Uhern. While this might not have a big impact on conservation protection, as you brought out, it still may be of value for them to keep these two lines seperate for the reasons Eric mentioned.

I hope in the near future, some frogs can be made available through Understory that can be aggressivly managed through TWI/ASN. I honestly feel the Imitaor group is one of the most outstanding in the whole hobby (if not always the most flashy or popular), and I really want to see some solid stock numbers of these animals cared for under ASN.


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## Mywebbedtoes (Jul 2, 2007)

Just as a side note, I met Jon Uhern this weekend. Really nice guy and he was pleased to see some offspring from the frogs he brought in way back when.


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## markbudde (Jan 4, 2008)

Thats really cool. Was he able to confirm anything?


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## Mywebbedtoes (Jul 2, 2007)

We didn't get into that too much, John has been out of darts while. But for sure there was a group of frogs John Uhern brought in and a group that Tor Linbo brought in from different sources. I will ask Tor about it soon.

I have Uhern Intermedius, but Eric Malolpsy and Jon Garrett had both the Uhern and Tor lines. The groups they had look different, but I have Uherns that look just like the Linbo Intermedius. Still, we have no way of knowing if these two lines were all collected together or not.


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