Re: Giant Orange vs. Regina

[sports_doc]

Regina male, Nabors line.


Regina pair 1, Nabors line.


Giant Orange, Pair 1, Nabors line.


Regina male, Nabors line


Giant Orange male, Nabors line.

I am also growing up a group of 4 "Giant Orange" from Chuck as well. They have an appearance more closely resembling the Nabors Giant Orange, not the Regina.

If these are one line, then Patrick has had them separated long enough to clearly show morphologic differences.

While I love the discussion, I just thought a page without pics is to sad to pass up. Thanks Brent

[bbrock]

Thanks Shawn,

That helps quite a bit. I've updated the chart once again to add new information:

Which brings up a new question. NAIB clearly had Giant Orange and those animals could be sources for some in the hobby. But where did they get their animals. I suspect from Sean but that would need verification before it could be included.

Also, there is an alternative view of how populations should be designated. I mentioned earlier a 2 population option where the Chuck N. animals are one populations and a second population is everything else because of possible confusion among those animals.

But the justification for that lumping comes largely from the possibility that two major sources (Stewart and Nabors) have flipped designations for GO and Regina. This needs to be verified. If it is true, then there could be a 4 population scenario where Nishihira, Nabors, and Steward are all pure, but we don't know exactly which frogs go with which. Shawn's post indicates that the Nishihira and Nabors GO may be the same. And if the Stewart Regina is actually the Nabors GO, then those 3 could be safely lumped. Or if it turns out that the flipping of GO and Regina is false, then all GO are the same line and should be lumped.

But we don't have answers to these questions so another way would be to keep the 3 lines apart. Any animals mixed between any of the two lines become suspect since people pairing anything called GO may be mixing GO and Regina. So those would form a 4th (possibly mixed) population.

I guess I'm leaning toward the idea that GO and Regina possibly originated as two distinct populations from distinct localities, but that the names may have been fuddled in various ways along the way. I think any way we slice it, the origins of these animals become increasingly suspect the farther you get from the 3 main sources of animals in this country.

[Homer]

Originally Posted by bbrock

Thanks Shawn,

But the justification for that lumping comes largely from the possibility that two major sources (Stewart and Nabors) have flipped designations for GO and Regina. This needs to be verified. If it is true, then there could be a 4 population scenario where Nishihira, Nabors, and Steward are all pure, but we don't know exactly which frogs go with which. Shawn's post indicates that the Nishihira and Nabors GO may be the same. And if the Stewart Regina is actually the Nabors GO, then those 3 could be safely lumped. Or if it turns out that the flipping of GO and Regina is false, then all GO are the same line and should be lumped.

I have a group of Reginas from Marcus Breece and a pair from offspring of Patrick Nabors. My Reginas from Marcus are from frogs he originally received from Sean Stewart.

In speaking to Marcus about the background of these animals, he was clearly of the understanding that (and Marcus, please correct me here if I'm misinterpreting you) Sean had switched how he was naming these frogs after Marcus had received these Reginas. So, the frogs that Marcus received as Reginas from Sean are now being called Giant Oranges. Marcus continues to call them Reginas, as that is what he received them as.

In comparing the frogs from Marcus with the frogs with Patrick, I don't believe that I could make morphologic distinctions between the two . . . which makes sense, because all accounts I have received indicate that Sean reversed which frogs were named what a few years back after speaking with a European individual who had been to, or near the original collection sites for the two different originating lines (or so the legend and lore goes). So, where does this leave us?

It is said that the Europeans do not recognize a difference between the GO and the Regina. We have people who have received offspring from the exact same pair of frogs that are being called different names, depending upon when they were purchased, and offspring of those frogs are being passed on named who knows what. Thankfully, this community is a small one, and we can track down, for the most part, what the history of these frogs are because there are typically only one or two generations removed from one of these established breeders.

However, unless we can get the stories on the founding stock, and the reason for splitting the names, I don't know that we have any reason to believe or not to believe that these are separate populations. Does anyone know Sean well enough to get the back story on these?

Finally, I'll throw in my two cents here, for exactly what it's worth. I agree with the sentiment that we want to retain the wild caught characteristics of the animals we care for and reproduce. However, I have seen an overwhelming number of people that want to split off frogs as different morphs simply based upon purely morphological characteristics . . . and in a vacuum of information. Based upon the amazing amount of variability I have seen in offspring from single pairs, I think this is a dangerous path for our hobby.

I understand that on one hand we have the danger of creating "mutts" that are still the same species, but which may be mixing populations that are not contiguous. However, on the other hand, we have the danger of line breeding only animals that look alike to their siblings, which will ultimately end in low production animals that do not thrive. I have raised killifish in the past that were so line bred that you had to create unrealistic environments to get the eggs to remain viable, while simply backbreeding them to lines of the standard morph created a generation of fish that were vastly superior to the line bred parents in health, vigor, and viability of eggs.

In instances like this, where all accounts agree that both populations are at the very least geographically close to one another, and some accounts suggest that collection sites were from geographically contiguous populations, the risk of producing deleterious effects from line breeding from the already small founding population is much greater than us, as a hobby, producing a frog that is not fairly representative of what is found in the wild.

[bbrock]

Originally Posted by Homer

In instances like this, where all accounts agree that both populations are at the very least geographically close to one another, and some accounts suggest that collection sites were from geographically contiguous populations, the risk of producing deleterious effects from line breeding from the already small founding population is much greater than us, as a hobby, producing a frog that is not fairly representative of what is found in the wild.

An excellent observation Homer. I also agree that my tendency would be to lump these animals together. But I'm a self-confessed lumper and don't want to impose that bias. We do need to get more information directly from Sean. But I do think it looks likely that Regina and GO have been muddled back and forth enough that we can't assume most of these animals are genetically "pure" to population IF they actually originated from two populations. There is also the possibility that they were collected from different areas of a contiguous population. Which could explain the subtle morphological differences.

Where that leaves us, I don't know. We don't have a TMG for tinctorius established in ASN at this point. But it might be worth looking at the much more simple example of D. variabilis that was posted last week. It can be accessed at: http://www.treewalkers.org/projects/ASN/ At some point lines have to be drawn around captive animals to decide how they are managed from this point forward. In the case of variabilis, their are 2 populations in the US which may, or may not, have originated from the same wild population. One population is known for certain and the other is hazy. So the TMG decided to split management strategies by managing the certain population as Category 3 and the hazy population as Category 1. Basically, focus on the group you have the most confidence in and move forward.

[skylsdale]

Brent, I assume that if more specific/concrete collection information was uncovered regarding the Category 1 population, there is a possibility that it stage would change, possibly allowing the frogs being managed within that population to be introduced to the Category 3 population?

[Julio]

Hey Brent,
beautiful frogs by the way!!

[bbrock]

Originally Posted by skylsdale

Brent, I assume that if more specific/concrete collection information was uncovered regarding the Category 1 population, there is a possibility that it stage would change, possibly allowing the frogs being managed within that population to be introduced to the Category 3 population?

I assume you are talking about the variabilis example from the TMG that Oz wrote. If so, then yes, there are a couple ways the Cat 1 population could change. If known locality data came to light and we were confident that the animals in that population had not been mixed with other populations, then they could go to Cat 3. Another possibility would be if it was determined that there is only one wild population that fits this particular morph in which case the TMG might consider lumping. In this case I doubt it though because the Cat 3 population are the INIBICO frogs and there are plenty of them already in captivity to found a solid genetic population. Also, Oz just got word that the Understory and INIBIO variabilis are from the same wild population.

But I do want to emphasize there should be no stigma about Category 1 animals. For our purposes of just wanting captive frog populations that have all the neat traits of their wild ancestors, Category 1 frogs are just as good as animals with known locality data. We only need locality data for animals being bred as assurance colonies for possible reintroduction. Frankly, that is highly unlikely for the vast majority of species kept in the hobby. Most of our conservation gain will come from keeping captive populations "wild" so we eliminate the incentive to go collect more animals from the wild. However, when we do have locality data, it only makes sense to manage them as Category 3 since it doesn't take much extra effort. And it is good training for how to manage those species that really do need captive management with the possibility of returning them to the wild some day.