bloodline crossing

[Rain_Frog]

Is it ok to cross bloodlines? I have a WC group of Mantella ebenaui, and I have two CB mantella ebenaui from Mark Pepper. I'm pretty sure they're unrelated, but I can never be certain.

If I can cross the bloodlines, am I supposed to label them F1s?

[housevibe7]

This is one of those topics Doug that are almost like hybrids to some people... It REALLY depends on whom you ask. There are two parties, lumpers and splitters, so a lot really depends on if they are proven to be the same population or possibly different pops... I say if they are known to be all one population, go for it, more genetic diversity, but I know there are many people who feel different.... so tread lightly.

[sports_doc]

Originally Posted by Rain_Frog

Is it ok to cross bloodlines? I have a WC group of Mantella ebenaui, and I have two CB mantella ebenaui from Mark Pepper. I'm pretty sure they're unrelated, but I can never be certain.

If I can cross the bloodlines, am I supposed to label them F1s?

If you have a WC group Doug I'm pretty sure they are unrelated to Mark's then also :wink:

'Cross' away....IMO

I believe technically their offspring can be called F1, although most reserve that designation [somewhat incorrectly] only to identify 'first generation' offspring of WC parents.

Simply enough to label your offspring as coming from WC and CB groups, intermixed [since you dont know who breeds with who, ie: the F1's from Mark growing up and breeding with each other sometimes, and othertimes with some of the WC's]

S

[insularexotics]

Doug,
Not to push a discussion off DB, but this would probably be a better discussion for ASN. And please don't think I'm passing judgement on you or anyone else that crosses bloodlines, morphs, or even species. My concerns with crossing your two bloodlines would be that Mantella taxonomy is so in-flux right now. You don't want to cross two species if your goal is species preservation (I'm making an assumption here that I realize is not necessarily a good one for every frogger).

Just like there are LOTS of PDF locality morphs, the mantellas in different areas are variable. We don't want to lose that variation any more than we want to lose interspecies Mantella variation or locality dart frog diversity. In the absence of good locality data for either group, I think it best FOR NOW to keep them seperate until such time as we prove them to be genetically identical enough to be called the same frogs. I guess a good question would be: How similar/dissimilar do your two groups look in terms of color, pattern, size?

As another solution, I could send you more Mark Pepper ebenaui (he calls them betsileo) to bolster your Pepper group. Since you're already having success with your WC, you could be the ebenaui emperor!

Just my $0.02
Rich

[sports_doc]

Rich is a splitter :-)

;-)

S

[insularexotics]

Hi my name is Rich. And I'm a splitter. It's been five months since my last hybrid frog breeding event.

Listen Shawn, you thumnail/eggfeeder-loving excuse for a frogger. You just keep your non-mantella-breeding opinions out of this :twisted: just kidding, of course.

But we can never undo hybrids, if they prove to be different on some level. And cleaning up a bloodline that is even slightly "sullied" is next to impossible once those mutts end up in the hobby. In all seriousness, would you intentionally mix Neighbors and INIBICO imitators? For my part, I would not.
Rich

[Rain_Frog]

Man, this is gonna be a toughie. I'm hearing both sides of the argument.

Rich, I'm not saying I support hybrids, but I want good genetic diversity and "standby" frogs because I only have one WC male ebenaui. Maybe this is my experience, but male ebenaui are harder to find than females. If my WC male dies, I'm screwed. (Also, remember ebenaui breed better in groups, but my WC male, Flash, does a good job to impress his two girlfriends )

At the same time, I see your point. If I mix my breeding groups, I could get either Doug Peel bloodline, Mark Pepper bloodline, or a combination of both. So, I wouldn't be able to tell who bred with whom, as the two CB ebenaui are a pair. :roll: But there are no guarantees that my frogs are unrelated to Pepper's, because they look pretty similar.

However, all three of my WC ebenaui look different.

Corey supports mixing the "lines." I'm curious what Devin has to say.

Rich, I would buy more mark pepper ebenaui (i lost one male over the winter, you can find the post in General health and disease treatment), but I am drastically losing space right now.

[Rain_Frog]

what about CB frogs? I have a lone male cobalt I would like to pair up. I have seen some people label their surinam cobalts something like "Nabors x Menigoz."

I have two male anthonyi from Sean Stewart, and two from Bill Heath. However, I think Bill said his line is from Sean's. So, does that make my frogs Heath x Stewart, or Stewart?

How many lines of CB dart frogs are there?

[Devin Edmonds]

This is a good topic, and i've spent a lot of time thinking about it myself.

Without locale data there isn't really a right or wrong answer. We don't know what population of ebenaui/betsileo your male was collected from, and we don't know where Mark's came from either. The two species can not be told apart based on morphology alone, you need to know where they were collected or do some molecular/genetic stuff to tell the two species apart at this time. So in this situation, if it were me, I would keep the two seperate.

I keep different imports of the same species apart myself, but this doesn't really ensure anything considering it's possible (likely?) that the exporters are obtaining mantella frogs from multiple populations.

I guess you have to ask yourself what the goal is too. What's the purpose of breeding your frogs? Why bother with this attempt to keep populations seperate if offspring are just entering the pet trade anyways? Is that the objective, to produce frogs for the trade (theoretically reducing demand for wild-caught frogs, realistically it's a different story)? or is there something larger in your mind, maintaining a viable captive population that represents one in the wild? Once you establish this, it's easier to figure out if it's best to keep two groups of frogs seperate or not.

[hylahill]

Along those lines, I have imi's that are labeled Nabors line that I currently keep separate from an imi that is from INIBCO and another that is a NaborxVillagis cross. All are identical looking and just about impossible to tell apart.

If I am isolating the Nabors line imi's for breeding purposes isn't this a bit like breeding brothers and sisters? Not considered genetically healthy for humans, not sure about frogs :? As all my frogs will never make it back into the wild in their native habitat and are destined to live in little glass houses a long way away from the rain forest, what's the point of keeping them separate? Often the problem with remote isolated numbers of a variety of rare animals is a lack of diversity in the bloodlines.

Again, I currently keep mine separate-however the reality of the situation is it probably doesn't matter.