# I.D. Auratus and Varadera



## FYr (Nov 12, 2015)

I am rather new to the world of dart frogs and as such I have only recently acquired my new frogs. I have the hardest time identifying the different black and green Auratus and because of this difficulty I believe that I have made a mistake. Clearly, I have two very different shades of green. Now, these two frogs are still quite young and at different stages of development. Is there anyway to reach a consensus as to if they are both Panamanian, Hawaiian, other?









My second IDK moment. At the same time I purchased the more blue of the Auratus, I also got three Varadero. The first part of this IDK moment comes with the question of line breeding. These are all related frogs, something tells me that this is a no-no and that I should start separating now to avoid disaster later. The second part of this particular IDK moment is sexing. One of these little buggers is calling, I have absolutely no idea which.

Meet #1 who I am considering to be a female









#2 who I think may be a male?









#3 I haven't a clue









Thank you for all advice!
Emily


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## Encyclia (Aug 23, 2013)

Hi Emily,
Welcome to the board. Any chance those are green and bronze auratus? If so, it is common for there to be a lot of color variation in the offspring. This may be true of other auratus, too, but I am not as familiar with them.

Mark


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## Tricolor (Jun 12, 2009)

Where did you purchase the frogs? That may help. Best guess would be green and black Costa Rican and some form of blue and black


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## FYr (Nov 12, 2015)

Encyclia said:


> Hi Emily,
> Welcome to the board. Any chance those are green and bronze auratus? If so, it is common for there to be a lot of color variation in the offspring. This may be true of other auratus, too, but I am not as familiar with them.
> 
> Mark


Both Auratus were sold to me as black and green, not bronze. I understand there being color differences and variability, in person they match a bit more then the photo but it is still enough of a difference to concern me.



Tricolor said:


> Where did you purchase the frogs? That may help. Best guess would be green and black Costa Rican and some form of blue and black


The one Auratus that is a very obvious green color is a Panamanian green and black froglet from Frogs N Things that I bought previous to the Hamburg Show on April 30th, 2016. The other, more blue, frog is from Captain Ron's Tropical Visions and was bought at the Hamburg Show and is marked as an ABG green and black. I was always under the impression that ABG meant American Botanical Garden so I do not know exactly what line this frog is from.


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## FYr (Nov 12, 2015)

I am not sure if this will help, but this is the more blue frog only with different lighting.


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## tardis101 (Apr 11, 2012)

My green and blacks vary in hue considerably even within the same clutch and they vary as they age. If they were both sold as g/b then I'd go with that (the "blueish" one doesn't look that blue to me). The one sold as a Panamanian g/b I'd assume was right also. The other one, I don't know what ABG means outside of substrate. I'm sure if you PM Ron here on the board he can probably tell you. Neither look like Hawaiians to me (but I'm not an expert!).

As to the line breeding question...there are ups and downs. Lots of ups and downs. But ultimately I think you might ask yourself what you're plans on for the offspring if they have any. If you're only going to be producing a few and sporadically, it may not make much difference (although to be fair others may/are likely to disagree).

Mike


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## Gibbs.JP (Feb 16, 2016)

Take my opinion as just that - opinion. But, it looks like the top varadero pic is female, middle is male, and bottom is female. Solely looking at the body shape, the top and bottom look a little more "pear" shaped while the middle is a little slimmer. Also, the middle one's toe pads look a little larger.

As far as breeding, there are many, many posts on here about the subject, but I _believe_ the consensus is that it's generally just fine to breed siblings/same line groups. I think the thought is that very far down the generational line there can be some issues, but for the most part there isn't a lot of current evidence showing that. I think the idea is that in the wild there is nothing stopping them from breeding with each other even if they are from the same line.


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## mongo77 (Apr 28, 2008)

Yea and it works in Game of Thrones!


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## CAPTAIN RON (Mar 29, 2010)

FYr,the auratus that you purchased from me is Costa Rican Green and Black (old ABG line) so its ok to keep with Green and Black auratus from Costa Rico. The green on the frogs sometimes comes out a bit Bluish/Green on a few froglets! I would not breed them with Panamanian if trying to breed them! Ok to keep together though!
Ron


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## TheCoop (Oct 24, 2012)

When lineage is stated as "ABG"-"ATLANTA BOTANICAL GARDENS" only keep with other frogs of the same lineage. The same goes with any other animal. Auratus even though Green and Black can show a bit of variable coloration.


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## FYr (Nov 12, 2015)

Gibbs.JP said:


> Take my opinion as just that - opinion. But, it looks like the top varadero pic is female, middle is male, and bottom is female.


That is exactly what I thought, so I'll just see who decides to commingle 



CAPTAIN RON said:


> The auratus that you purchased from me is Costa Rican Green and Black (old ABG line) so its ok to keep with Green and Black auratus from Costa Rico.


So this means I get to set up another viv!  Thank you everyone for the help. I'm going to look a bit more into line breeding because it makes the little geneticist in me nervous lol.


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