E. tricolor/E. anthonyi

[chuckpowell]

So can someone tell me the difference, in the hobby, between these two species. Back in the late 80's or early 90's these species were combined under E. tricolor by the scientific community. So that brings up a few other questions. Are the differences purely in the hobby or is there a scientific paper separating the two in the past decade or so? How are they distinguished? What are their ranges and how are they similar or different? Anyone have answers to any of these questions?

Best,

Chuck

[stevenhman]

From Epipedobates anthonyi :

This species and Epipedobates tricolor were recently separated by Schulte (1999). We follow Graham et al. (2004) in restricting the distribution of E. anthonyi to southern Ecuador and northern Peru.

I guess my google-fu isn't strong enough to locate the actual paper though.

**editing**

Maybe the 1st paper?
Schulte, R. (1999) Die Pfeilgiftfrosche Vol. II: Peru: Arteneil. INIBICO, Waiblingen, Peru.

I found the 2nd paper: Rapid diversification of colouration among populations of a poison frog isolated on sky peninsulas in the central cordilleras of Peru
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/1....tb00461.x/pdf

[chuckpowell]

Thank you Steven. Would anyone have a translation of the relevant part of the Schulte book? I would like to know how to distinguish the two species. Thanks.

Best,

Chuck

[stevenhman]

Try as I might I could not find any copy of his, even through google.de. There are a few Germans floating around here and there on DB, but of course now I can't remember any of their names... Maybe drop MWorks a line? He might have a friend in the German hobby.

Mid-post edit: Found a German!

http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/members/gluedl.html

Good luck and let us know what you find.

[stevenhman]

Hm, I almost forgot about this site. Still no luck on that paper though.

From dendrobase.de

Epipedobates anthonyi Google Translate

Epipedobates tricolor Google Translate

[fieldnstream]

This came up yesterday...to quote thedude:
"Only true tricolor population in the hobby are the Moraspungas. Everything else is anthonyi."
This doesn't answer the hobby/taxonomy question, but at least it gives a little insight.

[Afemoralis]

Here is the other paper that may be of help:

INTEGRATING PHYLOGENETICS AND ENVIRONMENTAL NICHE MODELS TO EXPLORE SPECIATION MECHANISMS IN DENDROBATID FROGS
Catherine H. Graham, Santiago R. Ron, Juan C. Santos, Christopher J. Schneider, Craig Moritz

And here is a link to the PDF from Google:

http://www.puce.edu.ec/zoologia/vert...al.%202004.pdf

[chuckpowell]

Thanks Gentlemen. I haven't kept up with the literature as much as I should have, but who has time anymore.

Best,

Chuck

[chuckpowell]

I'm just printing out the paper and haven't read it yet and I don't know phylogenetic analysis well as I work with fossil which no longer have genes. However the phylogenetic clade (Fig. 2) that contains Epipledobates ticolor and E. anthonyi also contains Colostethus machalilla. This indicates that 1) C. machalilla is really a Epipedobates, and 2) the recent genetic classicification of Grant and others need some revision if a frog can be identified as a Colostethus and be included with a bunch of Epipedobates. I'm looking forward to reading this article.

Best,

Chuck

[skylsdale]

Hi Chuck, not sure what your thoughts were after reading the paper...but if Afemoralis linked to the paper I believe he linked to (it is now broken), then the difference is finalized by a distance of about 200 km between frogs considered anthonyi and those considered tricolor. From what I remember from the paper:

E. anthonyi are found in southern Ecuador and most likely down into northern Peru. The authors said that there were so many varieties/populations within the anthonyi distribution that it would seem to warrant further genetic sleuthing to see if they are actually a single species or if some have branched off enough to warrant being considered separate species. They were found inhabiting a pretty broad elevational distrubition.

E. tricolor are found in central and a bit of northern Ecuador. They were also found to only dwell above a certain elevation and never below it...whereas anthonyi seemed to be more successful 'generalists' and able to thrive in the lower elevations as well as the higher ones.

And again, the two were separated by a ~200 km area where neither species is found to inhabit.