[guyelcamino]

I see that a lot of people get uptight over the subject of crossbreeding which is understandable. Not wanting to go the route that the snake and geckoe breeding have gone. And also the impure crossbreeds tainting the pure bloodlines. OR COULD THEY ?
According to the book "Professional Breeders Series Poison Frogs " by W. Schmidt & F.W. Henkel not all crossbreeds are fertal. The book states that only D. lehmanni X D.histrionicus and E. anthonyi X E. tricolor are fertal
So therefor if this is 100% true at least the potental for polluting the gene pool in minimal.
Does anyone know for sure if this statement is accurate. I know that crossbreeding will always be frowned upon but does this at least lighten up the tension a little.

 

[bbrock]

So therefor if this is 100% true at least the potental for polluting the gene pool in minimal.
Does anyone know for sure if this statement is accurate. I know that crossbreeding will always be frowned upon but does this at least lighten up the tension a little.

It would relieve the tension quite a bit but I think this has to be taken with a bit of caution. I haven't read the book yet but have been told a little about this hybrid section. But I don't know how extensive these tests of fertility were, which crosses have actually been tested, and so forth. It is not suprising given the diversity of PDF that some crosses would result in infertile offspring while other crosses would produce fertile offspring. So I don't think you can generalize much about the potential data. Giving the benefit of the doubt and assuming that the tests were rigorous enough, then all we could say at this point is that the specific crosses tested are infertile.

It also doesn't help any with the problem of mixing morphs.

 

[Ed]

With herps and fish this is not so obvious as there is evidence for multispecies hybrids where only a small percentage is fertile. For example, "parrot cichlids" are a three way cross and initially all were infertile. As time went on, people were able to locate fertile animals.
There are fertile triploid hybrids of salamanders (up to three different species contributing genetic material to create the hybrid) that are successfully reproducing in the wild (see ambystom hybrids in Salamanders of the United States and Canada for a full explination). There are also indications of speciation of chromosomal doubling in anurans, (grey tree frogs and the genus Ceratophrys) so a hybrid that has some problems during meisosis could also become fertile.
In short, with amphibians there are multiple pathways for hybrids to become fertile that are not open to mammals and birds.

Ed