# D. tinctorius "Giant Orange" ???????????



## joshua_delancey69 (Mar 1, 2004)

Hello Everyone, 

Let's make a long story short. I was at the Raliegh Show with intentions on getting a group of 5 froglets D. tinctorius (Giant Orange). When I inquired I was then told that they could not even sale me the frogs as Giant Oranges. Because of the situation that i explained below. Keep in mind this is by a big name frogger. 

Reason Being: Supposedly the Baltimore Aqurium disturbuted Giant Oranges to many big breeders in the United States. Well what is the shocker is did you get a D. tinctorius (Giant Orange), a D. tinctorius (Citronella), or a Mix between the 2 breeds of frogs. 

The situation that was suppose to have happened is that a Citronella got mixed in with the Giant Oranges and now you could be getting a Giant Orange a Citronella or a mixture of both. 

So my question is what is the truth behind this story and if it is true how do you go about purchasing this wonderful frog.

Just a Curious Frogger


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## Guest (May 14, 2004)

*Giant Orange Hybrids*

I had a large collection of PAF on breeding loan at the Cincinnati Zoo through most of the 90's, they had a group of Giant Orange Tincs they had recieved from NAIB. I had also gotten the first group of Citronella that hit the US from Jack Whattley and since they were 1.7 I put most of the extra females on loan at the zoo. I had always asked for some Giant Orange since they at the time were unavailable and at some point was given a clutch of eggs. After they hatched into tads I traded them to Pat Nabors for cricket credit and thought nothing of it until 18 months later when Pat asked me why they produced such dramatically different looking offspring. When I mentioned this to the Cincy Zoo employee she informed me there was almost a 100% chance they were a cross between Citronella and Giant Orange (they housed a small group of both morphs together in a back room tank which is where my clutch came from). I immediately informed Pat of the bad news, he then in turn contacted all of those he sold offspring to and let them know what they had. Most of these animals have been put on display or donated for display so that any breeding is ignored and no longer distributed. Occaisonally some of these animals pop up and they are usually quickly ID (the most recent case was a guy here in Sarasota about 1.5 years ago...no animals were sold as word quickly spread as to what they were). This the real story of the hybrid Citro/Giant Orange Tincs.
Now there are many "clean" lines of Giant Orange and Regina Tincs available, Pat has a great F1 line of Reginas, Sean Stewart sells a couple different Giant Orange and Reginas and I believe Black Jungle does as well. There is very little chance that these hybrids are still in the market and if they are usually you can trace where they came from with a couple of phone calls, and from what I have seen most of the animals are obviously "different".
I feel bad to have introduced this group of animals to the hobby and felt even worse when I had to make Pat go through what he did. But you should be able to find at least a few outlets of clean strains of Giant Orange or Reginas.


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## Guest (May 14, 2004)

Mark,

I remember reading bits of this a couple years ago but never knew what had actually happened. I was at the Cincy Zoo last year when they had the 
Frogs! exhibit held over until Oct. Was a very nice exhibit!! (any idea whom they belong to?) As for the giant orange tincs, they still have them housed in the insect house and they look absolutely gorgeous and fat. Are these a clean line on the GO or offspring from the citronella x giant orange accident? 

-Bill J.


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## Guest (May 14, 2004)

The Giant Orange in the insect house is the NAIB bloodline and a pure strain. Those on display if you noticed were all females, since all of the NAIB animals were siblings they did not want to breed them. That's why the only male they had was put in with the female Citros I gave them (this was done mostly for lack of space). It has been 4 years since I worked with the Cincy zoo on any projects so I am kind of out of touch.


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## bgexotics (Feb 24, 2004)

How ironic! I went to the Cincinnati Zoo this weekend and saw the giant tincs and wondered what kind they were. I have never seen such large dart frogs before. I was amazed.


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