# Difference between dwarf french guyana and dwarf cobalt tincs?



## Shinosuke (Aug 10, 2011)

I purchased a pair of dwarf french guyana tincs that look like this (these are mine from a few months ago, they're much bigger now):









I've seen people say they're the same as dwarf cobalts, but most dwarf cobalt pictures I've seen look more like this: 









Are these really the same frogs? Are mine weird, is there that much variability in them, or ...?


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## Roadrunner (Mar 6, 2004)

The dwarf cobalts you have don't look like any dwarf cobalts I've ever seen. They can be more yellow as juvis and reduce to lines as they age but I have never seen any w/ that much yellow. The front one looks like a nikita or citronella and the back one looks like a cobalt.


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## Shinosuke (Aug 10, 2011)

I would really appreciate some more opinions on whether my frogs are actually dwarf french guyana or not. I got these from a trusted breeder and would be pretty shocked if they lied about what the frogs are.

Here are some quick shots I just took, sorry for the quality. The first 3 pics are of my 2 (roughly) 1 year olds, the last 2 pics are of a 2-3 month old I just got:

Sorry for the ugly floor, this is the "feeding spot" my adults rush to whenever I come near the tank, that's decaying bananas and peels they're walking on:

























This is the new baby from the same line as the adults, still skittish and in a smaller tank so it's hard to get a good shot. You can see that it (hopefully a he) has a lot more orange on the head. The older ones used to have orange heads but it changed to yellow:


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## Roadrunner (Mar 6, 2004)

I probably produced over 1,500. They were the first dart frog I bred back in 97 and bred them for over 10 years. Gary Chamberlain was the only one producing them and I know of no other lines in the US. Unless they are changing I never produced any w/ yellow all down their sides like that or as orange as that(although I never fed color enhancers) or w/ near that much yellow(light/dark). I have produced froglets w/ lots more yellow but it always faded down to the one on the top left. The one on the right is a citronella. Notice the larger black spots on dark blue legs. This pic was from 04 Sorry it's a crappy pic but it took me 20 minutes to find. I guess I didn't take too many pics of the dwarfs.


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## JeremyHuff (Apr 22, 2008)

I agree these are not dwarf cobalts. In fact I think there is a good possibility you have three morphs- citronella, cobalt and byh.


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## billschwinn (Dec 17, 2008)

I beleive one of them are BYH, the other is kinda citro look to it.


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## Shinosuke (Aug 10, 2011)

I appreciate everyone's responses. I sent these pictures to the breeder to find out what's up.


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## Roadrunner (Mar 6, 2004)

Correction, that was Gary Putnam not Chamberlain


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## WendySHall (Aug 31, 2010)

From your pics in post #3...I think Jeremy nailed it. I've got all three of those morphs (yellow head, cobalt, and citronella) and your three are very very similar in appearance to each of those morphs.


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## Shinosuke (Aug 10, 2011)

Both the adults used to have the same orange head as the baby when I first got them but that orange changed into the yellow you see now. The black spots seem to have remained (proportionally) the same from when I first got them.


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## WendySHall (Aug 31, 2010)

I wouldn't base much solely off of the orange of a froglet. The yellow on a froglet may start off very orange and fade to yellow over time as your older frogs did. Most (all?) of the orange tinting of the yellow is due to what they eat (ie supplements). Yellow Heads (at least the ones I've seen) tend to keep more of an orangey-yellow into adulthood though.


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## Shinosuke (Aug 10, 2011)

I have been emailing the breeders about their frogs and they said that their original frogs were from Paul Miles. Here's what happened after that:

*Yesterday, an email from me to Breeder:*
Would you be able to put me in touch with Paul Miles? I've had multiple experienced people tell me that these do not look like dwarf guiana tincs and I'd really like to find out what's going on with them: _*I provided the link to this thread*_

Thanks,
_*removed*_ 


*Today, an email from breeder to me:*
Paul has been out of the hobby for at least 10 yrs.--have no idea of how to reach him. I would also bet that most of your "experts" have not been froggers for more than a couple years. I guess _*removed*_+ years experience doesn't count for much anymore. If you prefer, you can return the froglets purchased this year for a partial refund in cash as it appears that you are unhappy with your choice. Maybe some of these other folks can provide you with what you want.
_*removed*_


I don't want to return any of these frogs. I'm attached to them and I think they have great colors. I WANT them to be what they said they were. What's more important to me, though, is not muddying up the dart frog gene pool by breeding hybrids. Does anyone know Paul Miles, or how to get in contact with him? I'm curious to see what he says, if these are the frogs the breeders think they are or if there was some mix up somewhere along the way. We're all human, mistakes can happen, right? 

The breeders have been great to work with till this last email. From the first I let them know people said their frogs didn't look like what they were sold to me as and I was looking into it. I haven't mentioned returning the frogs or getting money back or anything like that so I don't know why I got this kind of response. I still don't want to tell people who the breeders are (I'm not trying to ruin their name) but that last email doesn't sit well with me. Any help would be appreciated.


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## JeremyHuff (Apr 22, 2008)

You might pm Field, as I know he is friends with your supplier. He might have some insight or get a better answer. I suspect tadpoles got mixed up or young froglets were mixed. Can you ask for a photo of their breeders? If the photo is of DC, then there must have been a mix up. If not, then they need to know what they are selling is not as marked.


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## hypostatic (Apr 25, 2011)

Shinosuke said:


> I don't want to return any of these frogs. I'm attached to them and I think they have great colors. I WANT them to be what they said they were. What's more important to me, though, is not muddying up the dart frog gene pool by breeding hybrids.


You know, there's absolutely nothing wrong with just keeping these animals as pets and having keeping them (and yourself in the process) healthy and happy.

I feel that there is something wrong with claiming that the frogs are something they're not. I believe that I've read before that if you don't really know the locality of your frogs with certainty (especially with tincs that look pretty similar between several locations), then you could really have anything (which is what I believe is happening to you).

Do you know if you have a 1.1 pair? If the animals do mate, you could just cull all the eggs. Just make sure that if you can't get a 100% definite locality on the frogs, that you don't introduce any of their offspring back into the hobby.


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## Roadrunner (Mar 6, 2004)

I don't remember Paul Miles working w/ any dwarf tincs(which doesn't mean much from that long ago). I bought some of my original azureus from him about 16 years ago. He's been out of the hobby a long time so whoever you got them from must've been in the hobby close to 15 years or more. Have they had the same pair all these years breeding? Ask them for pics of the breeders.


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## chuckpowell (May 12, 2004)

Paul Miles didn't work with Dendrobatid he worked with snakes. For a short time he partnered with Ron Gagliardo and Ron did the frogs through Paul's established business, if I remember right. 

On another point the frogs aren't and can't be hybrids if they belong to the same species and they do. 

On a third point - Dwarf Guyana tincts and Dwarf Cobalts are the same thing. What people fail to accept is there is variability within a morph AND there is variability developed by how the tadpoles/frogs are raised. In the old ISSD Newsletter someone provided remarkable pattern differences from a single clutch of eggs that was divided in two and one part taken to the east coast and another portion taken to Hawaii. Variations in color can also develop from the vitamins supplement regime. 

Best,

Chuck




Shinosuke said:


> I have been emailing the breeders about their frogs and they said that their original frogs were from Paul Miles. Here's what happened after that:
> 
> *Yesterday, an email from me to Breeder:*
> Would you be able to put me in touch with Paul Miles? I've had multiple experienced people tell me that these do not look like dwarf guiana tincs and I'd really like to find out what's going on with them: _*I provided the link to this thread*_
> ...


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## chuckpowell (May 12, 2004)

I looked at the pictures on the first page of this discussion and the frogs on top aren't dwarf tincts of any kind. They look very similar to Patricias. 

Best,

Chuck


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## goof901 (Jan 9, 2012)

they look like nikita's maybe citronella


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## markpulawski (Nov 19, 2004)

Shinosuke said:


> Both the adults used to have the same orange head as the baby when I first got them but that orange changed into the yellow you see now. The black spots seem to have remained (proportionally) the same from when I first got them.


Not to muddy further but I have seen quite a few Brazilian Tincs look like that and start off orange and change to yellow, and that is to me what they look lioke Brazilian yellow head Tincs which are also many time a smaller Tinc morph, could they have meant that as a dwarf Tinc?


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## zBrinks (Jul 16, 2006)

I've seen the breeders that produced these, and they look like brazilian yellow heads that do not have any orange, due either to age or not supplementing for color.


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## Shinosuke (Aug 10, 2011)

I've been talking with the breeder a bit more and asked frogfarms questions. They are still breeding the original frogs they bought as juvies from Paul. They said their babies also lose the orange heads as they mature and they texted me these pics: 

Breeders Adult 1: 









Breeders Adult 2:









A random froglet from the Breeders:









Hypostatic - I do plan on keeping the frogs but I would find it really hard to cull any eggs or babies they might have (it's not the babies fault!). Breeding frogs is certainly not my end goal but I am looking forward to that part of the hobby. I don't know if I have a pair - can you tell from my earlier pics? Looking at the pics from the breeder I can't tell which is their male or female.

Markpulawski - They said they have the frogs labeled as " dwarf (French Guiana)". I don't know anything more than that.


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