Crossbreeds, update

19878 Views 111 Replies 49 Participants Last post by Ed, Jul 1, 2017

RedEyeTroyFrog

Discussion Starter · Mar 17, 2009

This is an update for some of my older cross breeds reaching sexual maturity. i currently have 6 in this stage.

first let me say that i hope there is no bashing on this post for the simple reason that these frogs have been listed on here a few times before and most of the ppl who look at these threads should understand my reason for these frogs. and its not for profit, but for curiosity and further knowledge on the tintorius morph. This thread was not to be an argument

What i have noticed is that, most of the frogs have been losing alot of the yellow and been replacing it with black. there are still a couple that have kept the full yellow head and alot on the sides. These ones happen to be most striking to me. I have also noticed their bellies brightening up a bit and looking really cool. so far the offspring seem to be male heavy. i am pretty sure i have a couple females, but the males toepads are really easy to see on these guys. I'm actually happy that this cross breed was produced, the reason being that i think its a beautiful morph, and not only that i think they are just beautiful creatures in general. These frogs are still in a 15 gallon, but i think since they have been together for so long they are still getting along, i plan on housing these frogs in the 150 gallon where they were born. i should be able to house quite a few of these puppys in there.

any way i took some pics today here they are.

sorry about all the pics i tried getting a good mix, heavy yellow/ mostly black, bellys, toes, and what not

-Troy

I'll get some pics of my azureus subs as well, ive got 8 right now and im pretty sure they are almost ready for some sexing, and ive got 7 azureus froglets, and still a ton of tads

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Ed

· #61 · Mar 18, 2009

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

It depends on how the inbreeding was managed. If the population is managed to maximize the genetic diversity based on the number of founders then it won't have a lot of effect or in a natural population where there are selective pressures working on any negative traits then its not a problem either.
Cross bred animals implies that the animal was out bred to a seperate species. Depending on the out cross there may be hybrid vigor but this is often paired with infertility. (for example see mules and hinneys or in the case of frogs have calls that are unattractive for either of the parent species (see Wiley InterScience :: Session Cookies)

Some comments,

Ed

Ed

· #62 · Mar 18, 2009

frogparty said:
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.

Not necessarily. This is an assumption based on a lack of impact on predation and/or mate selection on the coloration of the populations. If the mate selection choices are strong enough or predation is strong enough, then there may be no changes in the patterns as the intermediates would either be removed from the populations or predated upon. This is what appears to be occuring with pumilio in the wild and why there are so many different populations.
(see Wiley InterScience :: Session Cookies AND Interspecific and intraspecific views of color signals in the strawberry poison frog Dendrobates pumilio -- Siddiqi et al. 207 (14): 2471 -- Journal of Experimental Biology for some references)

Ed

Ed

frogparty

· #63 · Mar 18, 2009

intersting point there, so the pumilio populations overlap that much to where there could be mixing of morphs, but mate color selection is keeping the lines more or less true? what kind of overlap do the morphs have, and what is the predation pressure on them? Something must eat them, spiders snakes etc. Is there documentation of hybridization between morphs, or proof of lack there of, or when we see all these different morphs in similar locations is it not the end result of mixing between 2 or more different morphs?

Ed

· #64 · Mar 18, 2009

Jellyman said:
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 don't think you understand this if you think it destroys the true bloodline.... Population management in this case is done hand in hand of genetic management of the animals. The population's genetic diversity is maintained through breeding the most unrelated animals according to mathmatical forumula to ensure maximal genetic diversity for a minimum of 500 years.
To prevent the population from overrunning the available holding space, offspring from animals that are too closely related (for example siblings) are euthanized. To minimize the loss of genetically valuable animals, new institutions gain experience by holding and breeding animals that are siblings and as such are not genetically diverse. The females should be bred to prevent egg retention, and prolapses which will kill the females. These eggs are used to provide experience for the new institution to rear them to metamorphosis and then the institution if it so desires can then aquire a frog or frogs which will allow them to breed animals that maximize the genetics of the population. By doing this the maximum genetical background is maintained which increases the ability to sustain the population in the long run as well as giving the frogs the best chance of being able to be returned to the wild if the conditions ever improve.

Ed

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frogparty

· #65 · Mar 18, 2009

So say on bastimentos island, where several different color morphs exist, do orange always select orange for mates, and so on? what kind of research and documentation has been done with this? Do the different color morphs occupy different parts of the island? Arethey seperated by uncrossable boundaries?

Ed

· #66 · Mar 18, 2009

frogparty said:
intersting point there, so the pumilio populations overlap that much to where there could be mixing of morphs, but mate color selection is keeping the lines more or less true? what kind of overlap do the morphs have, and what is the predation pressure on them? Something must eat them, spiders snakes etc. Is there documentation of hybridization between morphs, or proof of lack there of, or when we see all these different morphs in similar locations is it not the end result of mixing between 2 or more different morphs?

Mainly only in Panama..
I refer you to the first link to this abstract and to the paper

snip "Results Our results provide quantitative evidence for extreme polymorphism among populations, and more limited levels of polymorphism within some populations. No obvious signs of sexual dimorphism were found. All the colour morphs appear to have relatively little reflectance in the ultraviolet part of the spectrum. There is some evidence for clinal variation in colour and pattern across some mainland populations. There is also at least one area where distinctly different morphs occur in sympatry, suggesting the possibility of incipient reproductive isolation. We argue that variation in coloration may have been enhanced by sexual selection."endsnip

Note the reference to polymorphism within the population. One of the islands (which I can't remember off the top of my head) three morphs are found together and the females tend to choose males of the same pattern as themselves......

Ed

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Ed

· #67 · Mar 19, 2009

frogparty said:
I knew one of the terribilis came from very limited bloodline. New lines are being imported now,

If they are managed correctly limited founders can be dealt with an overcome provided that an effort is made to manage the population (seconding the plug for ASN). For example przewalski's horses are decended from 9 founders and were managed successfully enough that they were successfully released.

Ed

Ed

· #68 · Mar 19, 2009

jackj921 said:
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.

Some clarification here.. as I understand the thread.. the discussion is due to a crossing of two different morphs of the same species. There are no fertility issues with the offspring as they are the same species...
with respect to the integradation of a morph between two different patterns on the same species.. this depends. If it is stable in and of itself then it is due to specific pressures in that region which shows that it is a morph in its own right as the other two patterns do less well in that region. If it is not a stable pattern in and of its own right then that shows that the pattern is not sufficient to enable survivial in that location and then it is of little conservation value other than as a curiosity. The fact that neither of the parental color patterns is sufficient to enable it to survive over the other is also indication that area is probably a population sink and not suitable for either species overall.

Ed

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frogparty

· #69 · Mar 19, 2009

but look at the long term decline of the cheetah, where the last ice age bottlenecked their population substantially and once favorable habitat conditions returned, the reproductive success of the remaining animals is so extremely limited, and as such they are most likely facing iminent extinction from too shallow of a gene pool. Same thing happening to the lions of ngorogoro crater, except its not an ice age, but isolation both natural and artificial-human induced- has created such extreme problems in their reproductive systems(2 headed sperm, other sperm mutations, outright sterility etc) And without the influx of new genetic material, are almost certain to face the same end. With prezwalski's horse, only time will tell if enough diversity has been preserved to prevent these kind of problems.

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Ed

· #70 · Mar 19, 2009

ZeeMan said:
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?
.

For how long do you want to conserve them?

Ideally to maintain a population as genetically diverse as the original wild population you need a certain number of founders but the goal can be accomplished with less.

Ed

Ed

· #71 · Mar 19, 2009

frogparty said:
but look at the long term decline of the cheetah, where the last ice age bottlenecked their population substantially and once favorable habitat conditions returned, the reproductive success of the remaining animals is so extremely limited, and as such they are most likely facing iminent extinction from too shallow of a gene pool. Same thing happening to the lions of ngorogoro crater, except its not an ice age, but isolation both natural and artificial-human induced- has created such extreme problems in their reproductive systems(2 headed sperm, other sperm mutations, outright sterility etc) And without the influx of new genetic material, are almost certain to face the same end. With prezwalski's horse, only time will tell if enough diversity has been preserved to prevent these kind of problems.

Except with the horse there have been genetic studies, evaluations of sperm etc and they are not showing those effects. Cheetah are a bad example as the population is so inbred that you can perform grafts from one cheetah onto another with no rejection of the transplanted tissues. Genetic bottlenecks are not always the obstacle that they are often made out to be as it depends on the diversity present in the bottleneck.
In addition bottlenecks are not always negative for the population.. for example various populations of survivors of plague events are going to be selected for genetic resistance and the other alleles that represent susceptiability are culled resulting in a loss of diversity. If the event is severe enough and persists long enough, the resistant survivors can be bottlenecked...

Ed

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Ed

· #72 · Mar 19, 2009

RedEyeTroyFrog said:
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

From the conversation I have had with some researchers it is a true locality color variation and is not the product of a intercrossing of current color morphs (remember selective pressures...) and the reason there isn't any information available is one word.. smuggling. There are a lot of people who want to get thier hands on that frog and the locality. It is from Brazil...

[/QUOTE]. 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,
[/QUOTE]

Crosses of different tinctorius patterns are going to be fertile as it is the same species. I'm not sure of what informational value you think would come from the crosses as repeating the cross between different parents of the same color variation can produce different color variants depending on how genetically identical they are to the original cross. In other words, if you got the same color pattern adults from a different breeder whose frogs were distantly related to yours you could get different colored offspring when crossed. So the idea that the morph cross will always produce the same pattern is incorrect. If you find an old copy of Terrarium Animals Breeding, Care, Maintance, TFH publications, look at the variation in patterns in a single species documented in there......

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ZeeMan

· #73 · Mar 19, 2009

Ed said:
For how long do you want to conserve them?

Ideally to maintain a population as genetically diverse as the original wild population you need a certain number of founders but the goal can be accomplished with less.

Ed

If we were to conserve them (in an idealistic world, where their habitat is preserved and pristine), I would hope it would be a long time.

Can we do it with less? Another question that popped up in my head is...our frogs lack the natural defenses, poisons and natural parasite fighting capabilities, the wild frogs have, if we were to reintroduce them would not a large portion be taken out?

Fortunately, I think the frogs size work in their favor in reintroductions, also the size, variety and quantity of prey items works in their favor. Although it would make monitoring their recovery only that much more difficult.

I am only saying this because, as much as I would like to believe otherwise, I think frog reintroductions are going to be really difficult. Though when the environmental conditions are better, I think amphibian conservation ought to be attempted.

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Brian Ferriera

· #74 · Mar 19, 2009

ZeeMan said:
I am only saying this because, as much as I would like to believe otherwise, I think frog reintroductions are going to be really difficult. Though when the environmental conditions are better, I think amphibian conservation ought to be attempted.

Reintroducing any thing can be tuff thats not to say its impossible.
Brian

Ed

· #75 · Mar 19, 2009

ZeeMan said:
If we were to conserve them (in an idealistic world, where their habitat is preserved and pristine), I would hope it would be a long time.

Can we do it with less?.

It can be done with less..ideally 100 founders with proper management can preserve a similar genetic diversity as seen in the wild population for up to 500 years with proper management.

With fewer numbers to start you can manage the population but it requires a more intensive effort. This is one of the reasons TWI got off the ground (Tree Walkers) and the specific purpose of ASN.

ZeeMan said:
Another question that popped up in my head is...our frogs lack the natural defenses, poisons and natural parasite fighting capabilities, the wild frogs have, if we were to reintroduce them would not a large portion be taken out?

This can be gotten around by conducting reintroductions as tadpoles in those frogs that are not obligate egg feeders. With the obligates, setting up enclosures to acclimate the animals so excess parasite loads can be managed until they get established is the way around it. (tadpoles are how they are conducting the reintroduction of the Puerto Rican Crested toads which is working..)

ZeeMan said:
I am only saying this because, as much as I would like to believe otherwise, I think frog reintroductions are going to be really difficult. Though when the environmental conditions are better, I think amphibian conservation ought to be attempted.

At this time, virtually none of the dendrobates (or other anurans) in the hobby are being managed in any manner that will allow them to be reintroduced. The only way this could in theory be considered would be if all of the frogs of that species were extirpated in the wild and there was an intrest by the goverment of that country of reintroducing them.

Ed

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Dendrobait

· #76 · Mar 19, 2009 (Edited)

RedEyeTroyFrog said:
ok ive got some catching up to do, its st patties day still where im at and im just getting home from the bar. . . but this is the post that kinda rattled me.

You say these frogs are not particularly "nice looking" ?? id like to know what fits your line of description for "nice looking"

IMO while both morphs you mentioned have traits of these frogs, u can say that for a bout 20 different morphs so im not exactly following you there. Yes yellow is a recessive trait for a lot of the tinc morphs... including mine, the thing i find rare in these frogs are the amount of yellow they have, the heavily marked bellies legs and elbows, and the bracelets.... and if we go there well, we could talk regina, azureus, GO, even as far as yellow sips (as for the bellies) , inferalanis, giant orange, certain variations of cobalts, matecho, yellow bacl just a few off top of my head to name for the bracelets, and as for the elbows, well... ive never really seen that in any frog that ive personally seen, but thats not to say that it doesnt exists. the feet and toes on the other hand remind me alot of alanis which makes sense.

with all that being said.... you said " They dont have anything special marking them as hybrids" . . . therefore i have to assume that maybe we as a group of hobbyists we may have taken this cross breeding thing a little to far and got in a little over our heads with what we really know about these animals. if you can hardly tell the difference from a high resolution camera with flash showing all marks of the frog, how would really know the difference seeing in person? might just fit within the frogs of its locale, and not be horrifyingly different... you know what im sayn? I'm not arguing just trying to keep the thought open that we really dont have a clue of whats really out there.

Happy st Car Bomb
-Troy

Alot of times people ask in the flaming red hybrid threads if you cross morphs will you get something totally outrageous and distinct looking. Based on your frogs(which look quite normal to my uneducated eye, although(like all tincs) they are beautiful), that is not the case. I will go ahead and bet that if additional crosses were done+mutations/recessive genes coming to light the results would be definetly different from wild frogs.(as has happened in other hobbies...see below)

But I agree somewhat on your last paragraph, but if we are talking of conserving populations, their is more to the frog that meets the eye. Perhaps different populations have different adaptations(breeding behavior etc.?) that may help them in the wild. Of course we have no idea if these too will be lost in captivity. I kinda doubt reintroduction efforts(if they ever do occur) will be too concerned what color the frogs hopping around are, so long as they are their. But its best to be safe. But I guess keeping bloodlines pure means hobbyists have what can be described as an ambassador of the wild frogs. Creating new strains or morphs in captivity would take this away, and they would become pets just like another domestic animal. Not many look at a budgie or a swordtail and think of the plight of the species in the natural habitat.

Just thoughts from someone who doesn't even have dart frogs ATM
~Joseph

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swampfoxjjr

· #77 · Mar 19, 2009 (Edited)

Ed said:
Some clarification here.. as I understand the thread.. the discussion is due to a crossing of two different morphs of the same species. There are no fertility issues with the offspring as they are the same species...
with respect to the integradation of a morph between two different patterns on the same species.. this depends. If it is stable in and of itself then it is due to specific pressures in that region which shows that it is a morph in its own right as the other two patterns do less well in that region. If it is not a stable pattern in and of its own right then that shows that the pattern is not sufficient to enable survivial in that location and then it is of little conservation value other than as a curiosity. The fact that neither of the parental color patterns is sufficient to enable it to survive over the other is also indication that area is probably a population sink and not suitable for either species overall.

Ed

Ed, thank you for posting this. Would you not agree that lacking this simple definition knowledge (specifically the definition of species) should perhaps have been a deterent to this "experiment" given that without proper understanding of the basic definition of essential terms one cannot formulate a meaningful hypothesis without which no experiment can technically occur? I guess what I am trying to say is I don't understand what was supposed to be learned by this. A 70% Yellow adult female Tinc mates with a 75% Black adult male Tinc and you get offspring more yellow than the latter and more black than the former...EUREKA!!

Pardon the sarcasm but it just calls into question the supposed "deeper scientific agenda" behind this thread (and its predecessors). I am curious to hear your thoughts on how this public display of an unpopular practice aids or for that matter hinders the work of ASN or the hobby as a whole. Also, on a related note, your thoughts on how, if at all, crossbreeding Tinctorius morphs betters the species or the specific breeder frogs if nature has not yet seen fit to produce such crosses in the wild would be most appreciated.

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frogparty

· #78 · Mar 19, 2009

I believe these were accidental hybrids that were allowed to live out of curiosity, not the purposeful hybridization of 2 different morphs. Pictureswere I believe posted just for the sake of appreciation of nicely taken pics, with no emphasis on promoting this behavior in the future by others, or even troy

Paul G

· #79 · Mar 19, 2009 (Edited)

Ed said:
This is what appears to be occuring with pumilio in the wild and why there are so many different populations.
(see Wiley InterScience :: Session Cookies AND Interspecific and intraspecific views of color signals in the strawberry poison frog Dendrobates pumilio -- Siddiqi et al. 207 (14): 2471 -- Journal of Experimental Biology for some references)

Ed

Take a look at the pic from this study. Just sharing. An Error Occurred Setting Your User Cookie

swampfoxjjr said:
Pardon the sarcasm but it just calls into question the supposed "deeper scientific agenda" behind this thread (and its predecessors). I am curious to hear your thoughts on how this public display of an unpopular practice aids or for that matter hinders the work of ASN or the hobby as a whole. Also, on a related note, your thoughts on how, if at all, crossbreeding Tinctorius morphs betters the species or the specific breeder frogs if nature has not yet seen fit to produce such crosses in the wild would be most appreciated.

I agree. I just don't see the point other than to get attention. Why not register with ASN and do something useful. I really don't buy the "it was an accident" factor either. This is the only occurrence right? I've seen YouTube vids of yours Troy; with orange & mint terribilis in the same tank apparently cause another tank was not setup properly yet. Nice pics though. Do what you want though.

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MzFroggie

· #80 · Mar 19, 2009

Dang Troy I could have swore you said that this wasn't a post for some to bash. OMG get over it the guy did what he wanted to do with HIS frogs for whatever reason. I personally understand where some of you come from with regards to cross breeding and I don't mix species, but goodness just give it a break already. Are you serious 8 pages of reply's. On another note I brought a pair of frogs from someone who made a negative comment on this post, and I swear that it is a cross breed because it doesn't even compare to frogs I have of the same species. An that is all I will say. But if it bothers you so much click off of the dang thread.

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