[thedude]

well that noob you say, has pm'd me and explained what his thoughts are on the matter, and has a pretty decent knowledge on this subject... he respected me for what i was doing. but anyways, i really get irked when people say natural occurring morphs, i guess it bothers me because, IN MY OPINION i feel we really aren't exactly sure what the natural occurring morphs are. dont mean to argue, its just my opinion and its quite strong

......im confused a little. why are you telling us that we dont actually know what the natural occuring morphs are? just because they MIGHT mix in the wild, doesnt mean you should mix them in captivity to see what happens. what exactly is your purpose behind this? what are you looking for in the morph and the genes? what is the point? not only that but these shouldnt even be called a "morph".

by the way this as well is not hostile. just moving the conversation along to help me understand. cause i do think they are pretty. i think they are just as nice looking as alanis and cobalts, etc., etc. but they arent NATURAL, which is why i dont like them. exactly why i like this hobby over other herp hobbies.

 

[tonying]

Well one thing's for certain... in the dog world, mutts live the longest, often with far fewer health issues that true breeds suffer as a result of line breeding. You just diversified those frogs gene pool, and I bet they turn out huge, horny and healthy

One thing to keep in mind when comparing with dogs is that dogs have been bred to their current forms through artificial selection to promote certain traits, which may have amplified the impact of undesirable genes which have in turn have reduced their overall fitness. The frogs, on the other hand, are the result of natural selection and thus should be very fit for survival (at least survival under the conditions they originate from). Consequently, maintaining bloodlines may be a good way of maintaining fitness, thus increasing the chances of successful re-introduction into their natural setting, if that needs to be done.

 

[Marinarawr]

I don't remember the thread but Ed made a very good post about poor parenting in captive dart frogs caused by the false parenting we provide that allows for the bloodlines to continue. I'm not trying to be argumentative, but I thought I'd mention it as one possible weak link in the preservation aspect of the hobby. Sorry to get off topic!

On the subject of newbies to the hobby being swayed into wanting hybrids... One small solace is that hybrids are not readily available. I would also hope that, if the time were to come where captive darts were being released back into the wild, only well known, reputable, and/or long established dart frog breeders would be trusted to have pure lines. I'm not saying that the frogs of small, private breeders and enthusiasts have poor genes and what not... I just think that, while even those measures wouldn't be fool proof, it would be a "safer" bet. Of course the fact that hybrids are not more common than pure lines won't stop uneducated people from stumbling across them, but I think that it's up to those dedicated to maintaining true lines to scrutinize when it comes to finding a trustworthy breeder to buy from.

 

[jackj921]

What would the conservationistas say to keeping and propagating and existing wild caught pair of hybrids. If there were a naturally occurring hybrid population in a very small area of Costa Rica would it be OK to acquire and breed them with a goal of expanding that population? Is the answer that if it occurs naturally it is OK but if humans create it, it is not?
When does a group of similar hybrids in the wild become a "morph"? (Is Darwin still alive?)
In my newbie view, with the small number of people who keep Darts today and the even smaller number of hybrids available to anyone, I think the weakest argument against hybrids is the remotely possible introduction into the wild, at least at the present time.

 

[ZeeMan]

Since the thread has shifted a bit...
I have a few questions (these are not meant to be sarcastic in anyway, more for my curiousity and education)

1. From quite a few internet pages, a big reason why pdfs are disappearing in the wild is because of habitat loss and human encroachment. (Although, I remember reading somewhere that O. pumilio are finding a way to co-exist with human habitation). If we had the chance to return the frogs to the wild, how much of the wild is left for them?
2. If a species is going extinct, to reintroduce them to the wild, and counting the factors of disasters, area-specific environmental influences, macro environmental influence, prey, predators, sq. footage necessary, pollutants...how many frogs would we have to introduce to establish a viable population? 100? 200?
3. Lastly, from this site, it seems that a large number of frogs come from imports in the past. Considering the fact most of the frogs are cb now, how genetically diverse are our captive frogs? I see ads where the frogs are from so-and-so's line, how many frogs/line do the breeders have? In my ignorance, I have only seen a maximum of three unrelated lines from one breeder. If we were to release them, a single bad "factor" would wipe out a stagnant gene pool of frogs.

And on a more human note, while everyone hopefully wants to save the Earth, how many ppl would actually give up their frogs, especially frogs that have low egg/tadpole production and are rare? and what would be the impact of the frog industry? would we not want to keep some frogs in captivity so if the first introduction fails we have backup? are there even that many frogs to go around, especially genetically?

Troy, btw, the crossbreeds are really beautiful. I understand that the breeding was accidental, but still happy that you didn't cull too many of them. A life is a life, and sometimes I think we get stuck in ideology that we don't always appreciate that. (Now, my ff's are probably wondering why i feed them to the frogs...alas such a cruel world)
Did see any hybrid vigor in regards to growth?

Thanks all for reading.
I am no expert/scientist (Actually, for those who care, I am an architect/designer). I am not trying to start a fight, these are legit questions I have been trying to figure out.

 

[RedEyeTroyFrog]

ok Jack,
i liked your post, particularly you question about what if we found a hybrid tinctorius in the wild? .... this made me laugh because i feel that we already have found hybrids, but we dont actually consider them hybrids, when a different morph is discovered in the wild it gets a name, either of the explorer or say its daughter or its locale. So i guess to answer you question. It would never happen, because , for example, the frog that was posted on amphibian arks website, no one knows much about it, but yet since amphibian ark found it in the wild? Its not a cross- its a new morph... this is the frog i was referring to

zee,
their growth was perfectly normal, just as good if not better than any of my other froglets that i have or have ever had, they are about 9 months OOW, right now, i have a feeling that these will be in the realm of Citronella, GO, Regina, Cobalt, Powder Blue(Giant Morphs) when they are full grown.

Also this is a question for every1. Am I really the only person to date that has actually done this nad gone public with it? I can seem to find any information about any studies on this, what has come of the cross offspring, were they fertile? I know that there has been a couple of cross tinctorius in the past, Ive seen a couple on Frognet.org, but there wasnt much info on them, not many pics, no parent details, ets ets, and then the ones found on the morph guide on tropicalexperience, Amotopo, Weygoldt, and Agreja. . . is that it, if anyone has some more information on these or anymore cases of tinc crossing please list some links, or literature and what not. thanks All

-Troy

 

[frogparty]

One thing to keep in mind when comparing with dogs is that dogs have been bred to their current forms through artificial selection to promote certain traits, which may have amplified the impact of undesirable genes which have in turn have reduced their overall fitness. The frogs, on the other hand, are the result of natural selection and thus should be very fit for survival (at least survival under the conditions they originate from). Consequently, maintaining bloodlines may be a good way of maintaining fitness, thus increasing the chances of successful re-introduction into their natural setting, if that needs to be done.

Yes, but continuous line breeding and the inevitable inbreeding that occurs because of this cause many health problems. What do you think happens when there is only one bloodline available, and from the few original frogs of this bloodline imported, we end up with thousands? Look at the results every time a species has it's gene bank bottlenecked then attempts to come back from it(cheetahs are a perfect example here)
I'm not using this as an argument to support the hybridization of frogs, but merely using evidence already available to suggest that these frogs should be healthy and may enjoy increased vigor

 

[frogparty]

Wild frogs breeding and being naturally selected for fitness is one thing, where many young are naturally culled, and many many bloodlines exist in a select population. In captivity, we are working with limited bloodlines, and much inbreeding takes place, especially with rarer morphs. Look at terribilis, where up until recently you could probably count the bloodlines of each morph on one hand. There's not much natural selection going on in captivity.


And honestly, I am not holding my breath for the successful reintroduction of our captive frogs into the wild any time soon. There's no sign of stopping chytrid as of yet, and until there gets to be some real headway there, at least we can preserve them in captivity. The need to track our frogs origins is going to be an increasing need if we want to prevent the further degradation of the genetic potential of the species we keep.

 

[tonying]

Yes, but continuous line breeding and the inevitable inbreeding that occurs because of this cause many health problems. What do you think happens when there is only one bloodline available, and from the few original frogs of this bloodline imported, we end up with thousands? Look at the results every time a species has it's gene bank bottlenecked then attempts to come back from it(cheetahs are a perfect example here)
I'm not using this as an argument to support the hybridization of frogs, but merely using evidence already available to suggest that these frogs should be healthy and may enjoy increased vigor

I agree fully, every effort should be made to maintain a healthy genetic diversity in the frogs and artificial rearing may be part of the problem (as I've stated in another thread). So, while I can understand the rationale behind maintaining bloodlines and that hybrids are not necessarily more fit in terms of survival, inbreeding is a very serious risk too. In the case of early generation hybrids and especially accidental ones, I see no reason to dispute your assumption that they should be healthier. The serious problems arise when breeding is done selectively with specific traits in mind.

 

[markbudde]

ok Jack,
i liked your post, particularly you question about what if we found a hybrid tinctorius in the wild? .... this made me laugh because i feel that we already have found hybrids, but we dont actually consider them hybrids, when a different morph is discovered in the wild it gets a name, either of the explorer or say its daughter or its locale. So i guess to answer you question. It would never happen, because , for example, the frog that was posted on amphibian arks website, no one knows much about it, but yet since amphibian ark found it in the wild? Its not a cross- its a new morph...

Troy, keep in mind that these won't breed true. The offspring of these will look like everything from a alanis to a cit, probably with all sorts of new traits appearing. A population of these in the wild would be very variable in appearance.
-mark

 

[RedEyeTroyFrog]

thanks Mark i will keep that in mind, like i said i dont play on breeding them, but if they do ill keep an a couple clutches to see what turns out... where are u getting this information from btw, id like to read up on it, thanks
-Troy

 

[markbudde]

My point for bringing this up is that you wouldn't find a population of frogs which look like this. If a population of frogs began with 2 hybrids, the population would be very variable. They would not all look like your frogs.

The first generation of hybrids are called F1, and each generation of further inbreeding is called F2, F3... Where the number is the number of times they have been inbred.

The F1 are all genetically half alanis, half citronella. This means they are all relatively similar.
The F2 frogs will be anywhere from full alanis to full citronella. Furthermore, they might be 100% similar to some aspect of alanis and 100% similar to citronella in another aspect. Or the reverse.

This is the same reason why plant breeders need to re-make hybrid plants every year. If you buy a hybrid tomato plant, you can't cross it to itself to get more seeds, because the F2 plants will not be the same as the F1 plants. To get that same hybrid plant, you need to recross the parent strains together.

*To you geneticists, I'm aware that this is an oversimplification, but it is accurate.

 

[frogparty]

you can back cross hybrids to stabilize them, they just don't end up looking like the original f1's all the time. By taking f1's and breeding back to parent plants, or other f1 offspring the crosses stabilize over time, and don't necessarily need to be remade every year. Most of the time nowadays, crosses are remade with superior parent stock to try and increase the quality of the resulting f1, especially in the orchid world. Once a hybrid is stabilized, breeding the stabilized f4's or whatever they are together produces very similar offspring, then the rare mutations from these crosses end up becoming highly coveted clones because there is little chance that the particular trait that set that single plant apart will be bred out again.
So in the frog world, if a canyon or something gets cut off from an influx or outflow of genes, and there were 2 distinct morphs there at the start, once they start to breed together, the f1's will all look similar for the most part, the f2 offspring from these hybrids will vary greatly, then subsequent breedings will eventually start looking more and more similar until... voila! a new morph is created. These wouldn't necessarily look like the original f1 offspring of the cross, but they would eventually all look similar.

 

[buddha]

I think they are a Sexy looking frog. Colors are nice and contrasts well..

 

[Jellyman]

I guess my confusion comes into play when I read threads about zoos that are successfully breeding extinct or near extinct frogs and culling the offspring because they were not authorized to breed them. This goes completely against the arguement of being against hybrids because it destroys the true bloodline in the case of reintroducing frogs back to the wild.

I guess I would rather hear people just say they think it is morally wrong to cross breed rather then try to justify why it is OK for anyone to own a frog that was essentially collected from the wild. And yes, even CB frogs have their roots from thousands of frogs that were removed from the wild before captive populations were established.

 

[frogparty]

Not all frogs in the hobby originated from thousands of wild caught individuals.
Its my understanding that mint terribilis were only imported in extremely limited numbers and there may only be 1 or 2 real bloodlines in the us. Then, there is the issue of major breeders offering offspring from the same pairs over and over again, those offspring being bred with other hobbyists frogs purchased from the same source, and so on and so forth.

Some frogs in the hobby surely have enough genetic backing for sustained viability, while others most definitely don't without continual influx of new genes.

 

[Jellyman]

Not all frogs in the hobby originated from thousands of wild caught individuals.
Its my understanding that mint terribilis were only imported in extremely limited numbers and there may only be 1 or 2 real bloodlines in the us. Then, there is the issue of major breeders offering offspring from the same pairs over and over again, those offspring being bred with other hobbyists frogs purchased from the same source, and so on and so forth.

Some frogs in the hobby surely have enough genetic backing for sustained viability, while others most definitely don't without continual influx of new genes.

So then more terribillis need to be removed from the wild to make a viable bank of captive genes?? Would it not be better(and more in line with the arguement) to end the removal of any new species of frogs from the wild and concentrate on habit preservation. I gues that cannot really happen with species currently in the trade since it would be next to impossible to determine if they were illegally taken from the wild or captive bred.

It is my understanding that imbreed animals have many more issues then cross breed animals. Am I wrong in this assessment??

 

[Brian Ferriera]

So then more terribillis need to be removed from the wild to make a viable bank of captive genes?? Would it not be better(and more in line with the arguement) to end the removal of any new species of frogs from the wild and concentrate on habit preservation. I gues that cannot really happen with species currently in the trade since it would be next to impossible to determine if they were illegally taken from the wild or captive bred.

You really need to ask Mark Pulowski (i hope i dint butcher your name that bad sir!) about this but I am pretty shore thier where 6 bloodlines that came in on the mint terribilis but they where not labeled as what blood line was what...I am not shore on the orange but I think ALL the yellows came from 1 pr of frogs....
Brian

 

[frogparty]

I knew one of the terribilis came from very limited bloodline. New lines are being imported now, I noticed, and as I stated in the wc vs cb thread, I don't have an issue with professionals importing limited numbers of wc animals in for the specific purpose of establishing new bloodlines that can be tracked by the breeding hobbyists who want to insure they can get the most diverse crossing for their animals, which is why I think that asn is such a great program, especially when we are dealing with such limited bloodlines in several cases. And yes, it would have been nice if bloodlines from previous imports would have been catalogued better, but there is nothing we can really do about that now.
But to get back on topic... sorry for the diversion troy... I think these are neat looking frogs, and hope they live a long time for you. I understand wanting to know about morphology, recessive vs dominant color traits, etc. We with inquisitive minds find ourselves pondering these things often, I'd bet, and from an amatuer perspective this is definitely one way to try and find some answers. Not that I think its an acceptable reason to go around crossing morphs willy nilly, but thats not the origin of these particular frogs. Nice pics, and would like to see some new pics of that 150 gallon

 

[RedEyeTroyFrog]

its quite alright, i dont mind where the conversation has gone,, i will post pics of the 150 gallon when the frogs are in there and im happy with it