[Rain_Frog]

I just call them "painted mantellas." What are the real differences? I have seen some places mislabel them, like baroni is madagascarensis, and nigrans is a subspecies of madagascarensis. This is mind boggling. I tried doing a google search, but they can often mislabel the frogs. I once saw a Mantella betsileo labeled as ebenaui. I know definitely the differences between amazonicus, ventricumaculatus, lamasi, imitor, and intermedius, but information on mantellas is more sketchy. Plus, some are even considering that certain color morphs of mantellas are different species, like the red form of M. aurantiaca.

Thanks,
Rain

 

[Rain_Frog]

?

oh yeah, amazonicus is said to be a color morph of vents? Red vent? intermedius is a red form of imitator?

:?
Azureus could be a subspecies of tinctorius?

Wow, taxonomy is crazy! :shock:

 

[Rain_Frog]

differences

john gibeau has recorded and tested the calls of both vents and amazonicus. I forgot what he used, but he concluded that they have an almost identical call. You can read about it at tincs.com. About red/ orange/ gold amazonicus, could they just be a continuation on the morphs of vents? Or, ok, do you guys think then that amazonicus should be reclassified as a subspecies of vent? Or just amazonicus period?
I really wonder why only intermedius, according to what I have read, seems to be the only subspecies of any dart frog. I could be wrong, but thats what I have read. Do you folks know if any dart frog morph is actually a sub like intermedius? Whats up with salvias E. tricolor being separated to Phyllobates anthonyi anyway?

When I first saw azureus, I really did think it was just a different kind of tinctorius. The siplawini forms close by look very similar. Personally, as far as terribilis and bicolor, sometimes I wonder if they should be reclassifed as subspecies. Then again, I'm no expert on Dendrobatids, I don't have access to gene sequencing. Thats really my opinion. I was informed by my old biology professor (who has a major in zoology and is a herpetologist) that the reason why they separated the leopard frog complex (Rana pipiens, blairi, sphenocephla, etc) is because the northern forms will not breed with the southern forms in an experiment. However, some animals and plants can cross breed and still produce fertile offspring, so that complicates things further.

And back to my original question, I think maybe baroni is more of a grayish on its back than the more black sided madagscarensis. That was only one photo though, I could be wrong.