# temperature during breeding and frog color



## Roadrunner (Mar 6, 2004)

i have been noticing my super blues are throwing more super blue froglets w/ a lowering of the temperatures here. some of the first animals produced still have a greenish look to them and black instead of silver patterning. now 90% are coming out of the water blue. also my turq and bronze pair, which was green all this time, has turned more turquoise and throw more turq offspring since i lowered the temps. any possibility these guys throw different colors according to seasonal variation?
i know matt mirabello was doing research on patterning in genetics but has anyone done research on color adn temperature? has anyone seen anything similar w/ say orange/yellow leucs?
the ontogenic color/pattern change in terribilis and bicolor suggest a darker color as froglets to either blend in till they build their toxicity or to bask and collect more heat for such a small animal. since aurotenia and bicolor retain more black/dark colors i figured they may be from higher elevations.
this is what leads me to believe there may be something similar working in the panama auratus.


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## Ben_C (Jun 25, 2004)

Hi Aaron,
It's possible...I haven't noticed anything in 4 morphs of auratus, however. I've raised them in the lab at 3 different temperatures (bordering on fatal ranges) and have not noticed a difference in color pattern. Clutches were split into thirds to control for genetics.
However, I was not investigating color and so did not take actual quantitative data so this is just from recent memory...
sorry I can't be of much more help,
Ben


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## kyle1745 (Feb 15, 2004)

Aaron,

Any other changes? I have noticed big differences in coloration based on what the tads are fed.

Have you raised any to adults to see of the difference in colors stays?

I know my azureus offspring look very different when they are young but the few I have kept to adulthood seem to be very close to the parents.


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## Roadrunner (Mar 6, 2004)

At first i didnt sell any because i was worried about selling a green frog as a super blue. Only a few of the first offspring came out blue. About 15-25%. Gradually most of these frogs turned turquoise, some of which turned a deeper blue. I then started selling them all when most started turning. To the best of my knowledge they all turned blue.
Now they are coming out pretty much all the same color, turquoise. No change in diet since this happened. I have lowered temps about 6- 8 degrees and have gone from mass rearing about 800 tads in 100 gallons of water to individual 24oz deli cups. They are now getting boiled oak leaves and oak tea in their water. I guess the oak leaves would be a change in their diet.


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## kyle1745 (Feb 15, 2004)

Someone had posted how some species in the wild may have bit of leaves in their diet and in general it may help their development.

One thing interesting that I am unsure how well it has been explored is that each species may have individual dietary requirements. An example would be the tricolor information in the care sheet.

Back to the temperature thought I seem to remember reading that someone had done a study on the variance in sex of the offspring based on water temperature.


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## Guest (Oct 6, 2006)

> An example would be the tricolor information in the care sheet.


Although I think that is pretty anecdotal information and wouldn't accept it as 'gospel' quite yet. The first clutches of tricolor tads I raised ate fish food pretty heartily, as well as those in the viv's pool. At the time, the tad container was pretty clean. The viv pool has little algae in it, but plenty of bacterial films and some detritus.

However, the tad container has since accumulated a lot of green algae on its sides and floor, as well as covering the sprigs of creeping fig and java moss in there. For the recent tads I have still been adding the same fish food as I did in the beginning...only now it goes almost completely uneaten and begins to mold. The tads seem to be almost completely feeding on the green algae when it's available.


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## Roadrunner (Mar 6, 2004)

I did try and switch to algae bloodworm and daphnia a while ago and switched back. The first few super blues could`ve been on the tail end of that as diet for half their tad stage. With what Ed said in a different post about color enhancors possibly being needed in hi doses during certain stages or one stage of their life , well you need blue and yellow to get green, maybe the spirulina in the diet would make green froglets instead of blue?
they would loose that w/ age and turn all blue instead of green? hmm 
I`ll have to try and raise some super blues on spirulina.


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## brian_ (Sep 16, 2006)

I'm not sure if this is along the same lines but not all spirulina is green.

If you get 100% pure hawaiian spirulina powder, you will see that it is very deep, dark, rich and blue.

I know that when I mixed this into my discus diets, the blue colouration in them went up significantly.

Also, water temperatures could very well affect the colour of the froglets because protein structure is dependant on many variables, including temperature. At a certain temperature, the protein could have changed to a different shape and hence, a different colour.

But what do I know, I only have 20 posts


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Or alternately, an enzyme(s) in the color development sequence in the frogs could be temperature sensitive... (think siamese cats). 

My comments with periods during development where pigmentation can be set was more for Epidobates. 

Ed


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