Hey James, all.
This represents years of work and a monumental effort by WIKIRI and some pretty world renown Ecuadorian biologists to make this happen.
Historically the entirety of the Ecuadorian Choco would have enjoyed sylvatica distribution, with one population naturally running into another in many places, probably a slow transition from morph to morph throughout much of Esmeraldas, Imabaru, Carachi and into Colombia.
Geographically, Alto Tambo and the Otokiki reserve where these "Paru" frogs originate is situated between Lita which is located to the south east and San Lorenzo to North west. The hobby is long familiar with both frogs from near Lita, and those from near San Lorenzo. These Paru frogs, naturally are variable and express some morphological traits from both of these aforementioned neighboring populations. This is to be expected as there is no major naturally geography to isolate these populations. Resource extraction, in many forms has resulted in the isolation and reduction of many pupulations and ranges, but this is a rather recent phenomenon.
Most of these frogs are red/orange to caramel base colour with some hints of yellow spotting on the dorsum. A few lack the spotting and are more uniform in colour, while others have more pronounced spotting. The situation here is no different than what is often seen with pumilio from Isla Bastimentos, the Red and Blue Escudo situation, or variability that is naturally present in many Dendrobatid populations. These are not hybrids between two distinct species as is the case with lehmanii and histrionica hybrids.
WIKIRI is working on a much more detailed informational release, which will in much more detail summarize their work, the conservation, research, and educational work that will benefit from the export of these frogs. As soon as that is ready, we will publish it online.
Personally I do not see what sucks about this.
