[Tijl]

D.Tinctorius Tumucumaque at 3-4 months old :







Today I sold 10 of my Tumucumaque offspring that are now 3-4 months old. I took some pictures of these frogs because I realy wanted to share with you all how beautifull this morph of tinctorius is and how big they get in just this short period of time. Their colors are absolutely vibrant!

I am aware that unfortunalty these frogs are illegal in the USA, while here in Europe they are legal. I do not mean to start a disscussion or upset annyone, I just like to share these pictures.

I hope you enjoy.

 

[Encyclia]

Those are huge frogs for 3-4 months, Tijl! Are the adults especially large?

Mark

 

[Tijl]

I know right? They grow big fast!

The adult frogs are medium sized Tinctorius in my opinion. The parent male is compareable to leucomelas size.



Female on the left, male on the right.

 

[Tijl]

These are also good breeders. First good clutch was februari this year and I've had 56 juveniles on land since then and around 10 tadpoles swimming. I havent gotten anny clutches last month, I don't mind they are on a break right now.

 

[DPfarr]

What a gorgeous frog.

Hopefully the US gets legality straightened out for Tumucumaque.

 

[Encyclia]

What a gorgeous frog.

Hopefully the US gets legality straightened out for Tumucumaque.

I think it's pretty unlikely since these guys come from Brazil. I am not expert on export laws, but I am under the impression that Brazil doesn't allow the export of any of their animals. Maybe it's more nuanced than that, though. To the best of my knowledge all Tumucumaque Tincs in captivity came from smuggled stock initially. If I am wrong about that, though, please correct.

Mark

 

[Tijl]

I think it's pretty unlikely since these guys come from Brazil. I am not expert on export laws, but I am under the impression that Brazil doesn't allow the export of any of their animals. Maybe it's more nuanced than that, though. To the best of my knowledge all Tumucumaque Tincs in captivity came from smuggled stock initially. If I am wrong about that, though, please correct.

Mark

You are correct, Frogs (among other animals) from Brazil are defentily smuggled since there never happend anny legal export. But just like Galactonotus, there might be a possibility the morph can be "tolerated". That is what happend here in Europe.

The Tumucumaque I own are bred in a German zoo and they got distrubuted to a wholeseller in Holland. The parents of my adults are apparently frogs that got intercepted at an airport, at least thats how I understand it. Mayebe in the US there are Zoo's that got permits to study this morph in captivity, an thus were able to collect some wild specimens. But I have no knowledge of this.

What I am trying to say is that there are a few ways or possibilities that this moprh could become "legal" in your country.

 

[Socratic Monologue]

Every Australian herp in the US is in that "tolerated" category, AFAIK. This includes species that show up in US hands even in recent years (lots of new Aussie geckos). Supposedly the Hamm show is a big hub for laundered animals (smuggled into Europe, claimed to be CB, then shipped to the US and elsewhere).

My understanding of zoo stock that enters the hobby is that this is not quite legitimate, either. I recall Ed posting something here in the past about research export permits not allowing for this sort of thing. (I'm not saying this is directly relevant to Tumucumaque, since they didn't have a permit at all.)

 

[Encyclia]

It's true that weird stuff happens sometimes. Isn't there a line of Azureus that came from the Baltimore Aquarium or am I misremembering?

Mark

 

[Ravage]

Who knows? The way Jair Bolsanaro views nature, legal exports may happen. He's not that smart though.
If this dark humor offends anyone, sorry. I have Brazilian friends so I'm obligated to dig at Bolsanaro at every opportunity.

Beautiful Frogs, by the way...

 

[Tijl]

My kind of humor!

thanks for the compliment.

 

[PumilioTurkey]

Nice!

I am also getting 4 juvenile Tumus at Hamm this week


in what size of tank do you keep them at the moment?

cheers

 

[Tijl]

Cool, I am also going to Hamm to pick up my new Bullseye male and sell some pumilio, terribilis and tumucumaque. You are not too late to get your hands on these beautifull tumucs!

I keep my offspring in 40x40x40 tanks or plastic boxes 30x30x30.

https://youtu.be/hOqE_sojvkQ (clip of a few weeks aggo)

Breeding couple has a 100x50x50 tank.

 

[PumilioTurkey]

Awesome!


I plan on putting them in a 70x50x60cm tank.

Already prepared with lots of springtails and isopods though



and I moved my Punta Laurent into the smaller 40x40x50 tank.

I had issues with keeping track on their health and could not find them most of the time...

 

[Tijl]

Yesterday I had a table at the "Houten-terraria fair" were I was selling off some of my offspring,plants and other... During this fair I was very fortunate to get a visit of Matthijs Kuijpers (a well know dutch wildlife photograper) at my table. He ask me if he could lend one of the Tumucumaque to take some pictures of this specimen. Ofcourse I said yes, I felt so honored by his request.

Today I already received an email containing the result of his work :



I could not be more happy to have such a beautifull picture of one of my own frogs!



For more of Matthijs's work visit :

https://www.instagram.com/mgkuypers/
reptile photography
https://www.facebook.com/Reptiles4all/

 

[hypostatic]

Sad to see these frogs, knowing they have a recent illegal origin...

 

[Tijl]

Sad to see these frogs, knowing they have a recent illegal origin...

Which species of dartfrog in our hobby does not have an illegal origin at first? Does a paper wich says the frogs are legal now make it any better? The paperwork to make any wildcaught animal legal are 90% of the time still done by a illegal way of bribing and corruption. Every single Oophaga pumilio in the hobby is a great example for this. As far as i know,to this day only tesoros and wikiri are the only real "legal" and "humain" frog exporters that are based insitu.

Ofcourse I don't support illegal trade since their are numberous of dowsides for the species, their habbitat and many,many other reasons. But that's a another/differnet disscusion.


So don't get me wrong, I understand your reaction tho.

But look at the upside of making them legal.
The last year (since Tumucumaque have been declared legal in Europe) I have already seen hundreds, mayebe thousands of captive bred Tumucs.
I think this is very positve for different reasons. It is the same of how I feel about Galactonotus made legal for example.

One reason is that there is no more need to get them out of the wild since the suply of frogs is bigger or as great as the demand for this frog!

Another upside of their legality now is that this this morph can be preserved, since they are so easy to breed.

So say the government makes them Illegal again, this would probably be the downfall of this species. (Let alone talk about their habbitit being destroyed.)
I hope they will be made legal in the USA very soon, so this species will even get better preserved and studied.

 

[hypostatic]

Yes, this argument has been made many times in the past. Some people seem to think that because others have done illegal things in the past, it justifies them doing illegal things in the present...

These frogs should already be legal in the USA. USFWS decides on legality based on the species, not the morph. Since other tincs/azureus are legal, this morph is as well, since it's the same species.

 

[Tijl]

Yes, this argument has been made many times in the past. Some people seem to think that because others have done illegal things in the past, it justifies them doing illegal things in the present...

It all perception. I don't think or believe that doing illegal things in the present is the correct way or justifiable for annything we done in the past/present.

The problem is knowing what is legal and what is illegal? There could not be a thinner line in the trade or hobby of exoticanimals. I can only hope more "companies" like Tesoros de Colombia and Wikiri start to rise up. This for many reasons.

 

[Socratic Monologue]

These frogs should already be legal in the USA. USFWS decides on legality based on the species, not the morph. Since other tincs/azureus are legal, this morph is as well, since it's the same species.

I don't quite get this line of reasoning.

USFWS doesn't 'decide on legality'. They investigate apparent violations of existing legislation.

An animal is "legal" (which means 'legally imported' in the present context) only if they were collected and imported without violation of the laws of any country, or if the animal in question is the offspring of such a legally imported animal. This is what the text of the Lacey Act pretty clearly reads, anyway.

I don't get the 'species/morph' distinction, either. Some wildlife laws do differentiate between morphs. If I import from Germany a hundred CB Lampropeltis triangulum triangulum , I'm violating the Lacey Act since possession limit in my state is two. If they're albinos, though, I'm not in violation, since my state excludes abberantly colored or patterned animals from possession limits.

It seems as if you're using "legal" to mean "allowed" or "not investigated by USFWS", which is a different matter.