Hybrids

So...... I am the proud owner of three bronze and green auratus! Yay! But do not worry, this post is not about hybridizing them, as I have read enough sources that say hybridization is a big-time NoNo in the dart frog world. However, although there seems to be a general consensus on the topic, why is this a problem, if hybridization is an everyday occurence in other herp hobbies? Now, don't get me wrong, I don't plan on hybridizing any time soon, but I still would like to know why this is so taboo. I thought that maybe it was because dart frogs are becoming rare in their native habitats, and it is up to herpers to keep the lines pure for when the frogs become more of a rarity, or extinct, but this is only a theory. Please, shed some light on this issue if you have anything to say.

[npaull]

Oh boy... you'll probably get a lot of long responses on this. There are a number of reasons:

1. You already alluded to it - many dendrobatids are rare in the wild, and though people argue endlessly about the virtues and realitites of "captive maintenance for insurance against extinction," there is inarguably at least some theoretical merit to this goal.

2. Many, though not all, hybrids of other herps (colubrids, diamondxjungle carpet pythons, etc) are (I believe) naturally occurring integrades. This does not appear to be the case with darts, many of which are geographically, and hence genetically, isolated. Thus, dart hybridization is an unnatural event.

3. As a follow-up on #2, sometimes hybrids don't look like hybrids, but rather seem to have all the characteristics of one parent or another. Breeding this hybrid to a "pure bred" unknowingly may introduce genes which, down the line, can pop up and affect future generations in a variety of ways, from throwing out odd-looking offspring to, at least in theory, creating homozygous recessive combinations which lead to sickly, deformed or otherwise diseased offspring. edit: the disease argument here is kinda weak, as this can happen with simple inbreeding too, but the "weird offspring down the line" argument has more merit.

4. I think there is a strong emphasis/desire in this hobby to keep things "natural." Everyone wants a naturalistic vivarium (you basically never see weird gravel colors, for instance). That applies to the frogs, too. These things are so damn beautiful in their natural colors that people are almost offended that anyone would want to try and modify them.

5. Many, myself included, are dismayed at the thought that darts could go the way of the ball python - every little phenotypic difference, from the significant to the minute, is hyped as some great new morph commanding thousands more dollars. You want a laugh? Look at http://www.kingsnake.com classifieds for ball pythons; some of the animals there are CLEARLy just nice normal balls, but they are advertised at outrageous prices. Yellow-belly, I think, is the biggest ripoff joke in the world... but I digress.

6. We still have a tremendous amount to learn about within-species variability for almost every dart frog species. The incredible number o naturally ocurring pumilio, auratus, imitator, etc morphs is bewildering, and figuring out what the natural localities are (and what they look like) will go a long ways towards helping our understanding of these animals and their status in the wild. Creating (and spreading) hybrids could irrevocably damage this knowledge, even as isolated populations begin (or continue) to disappear.

There are other reasons, but I think that's a good start.

Thanks for the facts. I've been curious for a while, and suspected that it was a multi-faceted problem, and so its good to know a significant amount of the issues. I'm afraid I may have opened up an old-as-time debate here, but I still really would like to hear everything that everyone has to say.

Thanks!!